Identification and Profiling of MicroRNAs During Yak's Testicular Development

Overview

Journal BMC Vet Res

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Veterinary Medicine

Date 2023 Feb 21

PMID 36803968

Authors

Yongfu La

Xiaoming Ma

Pengjia Bao

Min Chu

Xian Guo

Chunnian Liang

Ping Yan

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Normal testicular development is highly crucial for male reproduction and is a precondition for spermatogenesis that is the production of spermatozoa in the testes. MiRNAs have been implicated in several testicular biological processes, including cell proliferation, spermatogenesis, hormone secretion, metabolism and reproductive regulation. In the present study, we used deep sequencing data to study the functions of miRNAs during testicular development and spermatogenesis, by analyzing the expression patterns of small RNAs in 6-, 18- and 30-month-old yak testis tissues.

Results: A total of 737 known and 359 novel miRNAs were obtained from 6-, 18- and 30-month-old yak testes. In all, we obtained 12, 142 and 139 differentially expressed (DE) miRNAs in 30- vs. 18-, 18- vs. 6-, and 30- vs. 6-month-old testes, respectively. Gene Ontology (GO) annotation and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis of all DE miRNA target genes revealed BMP2, TGFB2, GDF6, SMAD6, TGFBR2 and other target genes as participants in different biological processes, including TGF-β, GnRH, Wnt, PI3K-Akt, MAPK signaling pathways and several other reproductive pathways. In addition, quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to detect the expression of seven randomly selected miRNAs in 6-, 18- and 30-month-old testes, and the results were consistent with the sequencing data.

Conclusions: The differential expression of miRNAs in yak testes at different development stages was characterized and investigated using deep sequencing technology. We believe that the results will contribute to further understanding the functions of miRNAs in regulating the development of yak testes and improving the reproductive performance of male yaks.

Citing Articles

Transcriptomics and metabolomics of blood, urine and ovarian follicular fluid of yak at induced estrus stage.

Zhao H, Huang Y, Shu S, Wang G, Fu C, Huang R BMC Genomics. 2024; 25(1):201.

PMID: 38383305 PMC: 10882836. DOI: 10.1186/s12864-024-10079-7.

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