Transcriptome profiling in Eid1-KO mice brain shows that Eid1 links cell proliferation in the brain

Abstract Eid1 is a member of the EID protein family, which regulates differentiation, transcription and acetyltransferase activity. Accumulating evidence suggests that Eid1 is relevant to neurological disorder, but the main function of Eid1 is still unclear, especially in the brain. To better understand this issue, we generated Eid1-knockout (Eid1-KO) mice and profiled its gene expression changes in the brain by RNA sequencing. This study identified 2531 genes differentially expressed in Eid1-KO mice compared with the wild-type, then qRT-PCR verification demonstrated that the transcriptomic data are reliable. By protein-protein interaction cluster analysis, ‘regulation of cell proliferation’ were unexpectedly discovered as important Eid1 functions. We then isolated neural progenitor cells (NPCs) and showed that the number of neurospheres and the proliferation rate of Eid1-KO NPCs were obviously lower than that in the control group, furthermore, CCK-8 and immunofluorescence assay clearly demonstrated that the Eid1-KO NPCs showed significantly less cell proliferation than the control group. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive report of the Eid1-KO transcriptome of mice brain. Our analysis and experimental data provide a foundation for further studies on understanding function of Eid1 in the brain.