Survey of the binding preferences of RNA-binding proteins to RNA editing events

BACKGROUND: Adenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) editing is an important RNA posttranscriptional process related to a multitude of cellular and molecular activities. However, systematic characterizations of whether and how the events of RNA editing are associated with the binding preferences of RNA sequences to RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are still lacking.

RESULTS: With the RNA-seq and RBP eCLIP-seq datasets from the ENCODE project, we quantitatively survey the binding preferences of 150 RBPs to RNA editing events, followed by experimental validations. Such analyses of the RBP-associated RNA editing at nucleotide resolution and genome-wide scale shed light on the involvement of RBPs specifically in RNA editing-related processes, such as RNA splicing, RNA secondary structures, RNA decay, and other posttranscriptional processes.

CONCLUSIONS: These results highlight the relevance of RNA editing in the functions of many RBPs and therefore serve as a resource for further characterization of the functional associations between various RNA editing events and RBPs.