RNA profiling of wild-type and hnRNP A1/A2B1-knockout splenic B cells

The production of high-affinity antibodies is crucial for the human body to defend against microbial infections. This process requires the germinal center (GC) reaction of B cells, which generates high-affinity plasma cells. The development of germinal center B (GCB) cells is tightly regulated at multiple levels, including transcriptional, post-transcriptional, and epigenetic mechanisms. Among these, alternative splicing (AS), a key post-transcriptional regulatory process, plays an essential role in mediating B cell development and differentiation. The heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein (hnRNP) family is a major group of regulators of alternative splicing. hnRNP A1 and hnRNP A2B1 are the two most abundantly expressed RNA-binding proteins in this family, yet their functions in B cells remain unclear. In this study, we generated CD19-Cre-mediated conditional knockout mice for hnRNP A1 and hnRNP A2B1, and performed RNA sequencing to analyze the mRNA expression and alternative splicing events regulated by hnRNP A1 and hnRNP A2B1 in splenic B cells.