Cell type-specific transcription factor RNAs are rapidly degraded. (A) The stabilities of RNAs (including both mRNAs and ncRNAs) that are enriched in specific cell types are shown. mRNAs encoding transcription factors (TFs) are indicated in blue. The asterisks at the right of the plot indicate that the stabilities for the indicated group of cell type-specific RNAs are different than other RNAs in the data set (Mann–Whitney U-test). The heat maps at the right display the fraction of each category that is composed of TFs and the significance of the enrichment. The enriched RNAs were extracted from a single-cell RNA-seq data set derived from larval brains (Corrales et al. 2022). (N) Neurons, (KCs) Kenyon cells, (NPCs) neural progenitor cells, (RGL) ring gland, (Hemos) hemocytes, (NE-OL) neuroepithelia/optic lobe, (NE Tch) neuroepithelia/trachea, (Immat) immature, (Chol) cholinergic, (Glut) glutamatergic, (Undet) undetermined, (Pept) peptidergic, (Octop) octopaminergic, (GABA) gabaergic, (Serot) serotoninergic, (Dopa) dopaminergic. (B) Stability of cell type-specific RNAs versus nonspecific RNAs for transcription factor genes (TFs) and other genes (non-TFs). The numbers in parentheses under the box plots indicate the number of genes in each category subdivided further into the ubiquitous and cell type-specific groups. (*) P < 0.05, (**) P < 10 × 10−10, (***) P < 10 × 10−40.
