Pan-organ poly(A) atlas reveals a post-transcriptional regulatory layer independent of RNA abundance
Post-transcriptional regulation via the mRNA poly(A) tail is fundamental to gene expression, yet a comprehensive dataset across an entire organism is still lacking. Here, we generated a pan-organ atlas of poly(A) tail lengths across 18 murine organs using full-length nanopore sequencing that totaled 422 million reads. This dataset enables robust, single-molecule poly(A) profiling for an average of 7421 genes per sample (≥20 reads). We observed notably heterogeneous and organ-specific poly(A) tail length landscapes, ranging from profiles peaking at ~45 nt in pancreas to ~180 nt in reproductive tissues. Clustering isoforms by cross-organ poly(A) dynamics reveals functionally coherent regulatory modules that are statistically orthogonal to those derived from transcript abundance. This orthogonality is biologically informative, as poly(A) length co-regulation predicts known functional interactions even among genes with divergent expression. Together, these findings establish poly(A) tail dynamics as an independent, functionally coherent regulatory layer and provide a foundational resource for deciphering this dimension of transcriptome regulation (https://zhailab.bio.sustech.edu.cn/mouse_atlas).
Authors
- Shasha Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3593-5522)
- Wenqin Lu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7210-9684)
- Yiji Xia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9543-8341)
- Jixian Zhai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0217-0666)
- Yujie Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3168-6637)
- Yuanzheng Peng
- Sisi Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7290-8128)
- Yi Shu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7061-5372)
- Hongyan Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4739-2287)
- Yingxin Fu
- Yan Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1146-5578)
- Lili Ren
- Huajie Lei
- Mengyun Zou
- Zhijian Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3836-7377)
- Xin Eric Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0734-7993)
- Zheng Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3544-1389)
- Yanping Long (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4512-0594)
Institutions
- Hong Kong Baptist University (HK)
- Chinese University of Hong Kong (HK)
- Shenzhen University (CN)
- Northeast Normal University (CN)
- Southern University of Science and Technology (CN)
- University of Hong Kong - Shenzhen Hospital (CN)
- Southern Medical University Shenzhen Hospital (CN)
- Shenzhen University Health Science Center (CN)
- Shenzhen Second People's Hospital (CN)
- Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2026-04-16
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71703-6
- Primary Topic
- Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Southern University of Science and Technology
- Shenzhen Fundamental Research Program
- National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars