Characterization of A-to-I Editing in Pigs under a Long-Term High-Energy Diet.

Long-term high-energy intake has detrimental effects on pig health and elevates the risk of metabolic disease. RNA editing modifying RNA bases in a post-transcriptional process has been extensively studied for model animals. However, less evidence is available that RNA editing plays a role in the development of metabolic disorders. Here, we profiled the A-to-I editing in three tissues and six gut segments and characterized the functional aspect of editing sites in model pigs for metabolic disorders. We detected 64,367 non-redundant A-to-I editing sites across the pig genome, and 20.1% correlated with their located genes' expression. The largest number of A-to-I sites was found in the abdominal aorta with the highest editing levels. The significant difference in editing levels between high-energy induced and control pigs was detected in the abdominal aorta, testis, duodenum, ileum, colon, and cecum. We next focused on 6041 functional A-to-I sites that detected differences or specificity between treatments. We found functional A-to-I sites specifically involved in a tissue-specific manner. Two of them, located in gene