Rat Spinal Cord Injury Associated with Spasticity Leads to Widespread Changes in the Regulation of Retained Introns

To determine molecular changes that correlate with long-term physiological changes after spinal cord injury associated with spasticity, we used a complete transection model with an injury at sacral spinal level S2, wherein tail spasms develop in rats weeks to months post-injury. Using Illumina and nanopore sequencing, we found that from 12,266 expressed genes roughly 11% (1,342) change expression levels in the rats with spasticity. The transcription factor PU.1 (Spi-1 proto-oncogene) and several of its known regulated genes were upregulated during injury, possibly reflecting changes in cellular composition. In contrast to widespread changes in gene expression, only a few changes in alternative exon usage could be detected because of injury. There were more than 1,000 changes in retained intron usage, however. Unexpectedly, most of these retained introns have not been described yet but could be validated using direct RNA nanopore sequencing. In addition to changes from injury, our model allowed regional analysis of gene expression. Comparing the segments rostral and caudal to the injury site in naïve animals showed 525 differentially regulated genes and differential regional use of retained introns. We did not detect changes in the serotonin receptor 2C editing that were implicated previously in this spinal cord injury model. Our data suggest that regulation of intron retention of polyadenylated pre-mRNA is an important regulatory mechanism in the spinal cord under both physiological and pathophysiological conditions.