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Fig. 4 | BMC Genomics

Fig. 4

From: piRNA-like small RNAs mark extended 3’UTRs present in germ and somatic cells

Fig. 4

Somatic small RNAs align to xUTRs defined in the testis. a and b. Density scatterplots of poly-A mRNA expression (x-axis, data from ENCODE) versus expression of novel small RNAs (y-axis, from this project) at genes with xUTRs. The intensity of the blue color is proportional to the number of genes with a given level of poly-A mRNA and small RNA expression, measured as log (RPKM); dots in areas of lowest regional density represent individual genes. Plots are generated with smoothScatter in R. 212 testis xUTRs have both mRNA and smRNA reads in liver (a), and 264 in spleen (b); read densities of smRNA and mRNA at these clusters are positively correlated (top right quadrant). Many testis xUTRs have mRNA reads in these tissues but lack smRNAs (bottom right quadrant). c Somatic small RNAs aligning to testis xUTRs are not piRNA-like. Length distribution of somatic small RNAs aligning to testis xUTRs in liver (black line) and spleen (grey line): the peak at 23 nt indicates that somatic smRNAs are shorter than adult testis piRNAs. d Novel small RNAs aligning to testis xUTRs are enriched for 5’ A in liver and spleen. Background is the base frequency across these unannotated 3’ UTR regions

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