Abstract: Objective To investigate the role of BEND6 in regulating gene expression in mouse neural stem cells (NSCs) and to explore its biological function during neural development. Methods pCMV-mScarlet (control group) and pCMV-mScarlet-BEND6 (experimental group) plasmids were transiently transfected into mouse NSCs, respectively. After 24 hours, the expression of mScarlet and mScarlet-BEND6 proteins was confirmed by the presence of red fluorescence. Total RNA was then extracted from the two groups of cells for RNA-seq. Through reference genome alignment, quantitative analysis, differential gene expression analysis and enrichment analysis of the sequencing data, we were able to profile the transcriptome of NSCs upon BEND6 overexpression and to suggest a function for mouse neural development. Results Mouse NSCs were successfully isolated for primary culture. Whole transcriptome sequencing analysis revealed 165 differentially expressed genes after force-expressing BEND6, among which 102 genes were up-regulated and 63 genes were down-regulated. Enrichment analysis showed that these differentially expressed genes were highly related to the regulation of membrane potential change, synaptic transmission, stimulation response, growth and development and other biological processes. Conclusions BEND6 regulates the expression of genes related to neuronal functions in mouse NSCs, which suggests a potential mechanism in regulating neuron specific biological processes during development.

Key words: BEN domain, BEND6 protein, neural stem cells