RNA-binding protein Ptbp1 regulates alternative splicing and transcriptome in spermatogonia and maintains spermatogenesis in concert with Nanos3.

PTBP1, a well-conserved RNA-binding protein, regulates cellular development by tuning posttranscriptional mRNA modification such as alternative splicing (AS) or mRNA stabilization. We previously revealed that the loss of Ptbp1 in spermatogonia causes the dysregulation of spermatogenesis, but the molecular mechanisms by which PTBP1 regulates spermatogonium homeostasis are unclear. In this study, changes of AS or transcriptome in Ptbp1-knockout (KO) germline stem cells (GSC), an in vitro model of proliferating spermatogonia, was determined by next generation sequencing.