Integrative Analysis Reveals Conserved R-Loop Features in Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells

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Abstract
R-loops, three-stranded nucleic acid structures formed by an RNA-DNA hybrid, have emerged as important regulators of transcription and genome stability. Although ad-vances in high-throughput sequencing have revealed widespread R-loop landscapes, platform-specific biases hinder the identification of conserved R-loops in specific cell types. Mouse embryonic stem cells, which are transcriptionally active, provide an ideal system for investigating the potential roles of stable R-loops in RNA biology. In this study, we integrated 13 independent R-loop profiling datasets from four experimental platforms to define 27,950 Common R-loop regions in mouse embryonic stem cells and characterized their chromatin environment and associated biological functions. Common R-loop regions were reproducibly detected across methods and were preferentially localized to pro-moter-proximal and genic regions enriched in CpG islands. Genes associated with Common R-loops were highly and stably expressed, showing strong functional en-richment in RNA metabolism process such as mRNA processing, RNA splicing, and ribonucleoprotein complex biogenesis. Chromatin state analysis revealed that Common R-loops are enriched in transcriptionally active and regulatory contexts. Transcription factor motif analyses have identified distinct regulatory environments in Common R-loop regions, including pluripotency-associated OCT4-SOX2-TCF-NANOG motifs in en-hancer, CTCF motifs in open chromatin, and YY1 motifs in promoter. Together, this study provided the first integrated analysis of conserved R-loop regions in mouse embryonic stem cells, revealing their preferential localization at regulatory loci linked to RNA metabolism and highlight R-loops as structural and functional nodes in RNA biology.

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