Abstract: Objective To investigate the function and molecular mechanism of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) small nucleolar RNA host gene 1(SNHG1) in erythroid differentiation. Methods During erythroid differentiation of CD34⁺ hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells derived from human umbilical cord blood, expression of SNHG1 was suppressed. Erythroid differentiation was assessed by flow cytometry with surface markers CD71 and CD235a, while the mRNA expression of globin genes was measured by reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). Nuclear-cytoplasm fractionation and RNA fluorescence in situ hybridization (RNA-FISH) were applied to determine the sub-cellular localization of SNHG1. RNA pull-down and RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) assays were applied to identify SNHG1-interacting proteins. Results Suppression of SNHG1 significantly decreased the proportion of CD71⁺/CD235a⁺ erythroid progenitor cells(P＜0.001) and reduced the expression of globingene (P＜0.01).SNHG1 was found to be predominantly localized in the nucleus and interacted with multiple splicing regulators, including SFPQ and NONO. Conclusions SNHG1 may affect erythroid differentiation by recruiting splicing-related proteins such as SFPQ and NONO and thereby regulating RNA splicing and processing.

Key words: long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), erythroid differentiation, RNA splicing