Messenger RNA expression, splicing and editing in the embryonic and adult mouse cerebral cortex

The complexity of the adult brain is a result of both developmental processes and experience-dependent circuit formation. One way to look at the differences between embryonic and adult brain is to examine gene expression. Previous studies have used microarrays to address this in a global manner. However, the transcriptome is more complex than gene expression levels alone, as alternative splicing and RNA editing generate a diverse set of mature transcripts. Here, we developed a high-resolution transcriptome dataset of mouse cerebral cortex at embryonic and adult stages using RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq). We found many differences in gene expression, splicing and RNA editing between embryonic and adult cerebral cortex. Each dataset was validated technically and biologically, and in each case we found our RNA-Seq observations to have predictive validity. We propose this dataset and analysis to be a helpful resource for understanding gene expression in the embryonic and adult cerebral cortex.