Abstract
BackgroundRecent studies have revealed that noncoding RNAs play important regulatory roles in the formation of endometrial receptivity. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a universally expressed noncoding RNA species that have been recently proposed to act as miRNA sponges that directly regulate expression of target genes or parental genes.ResultsWe used Illumina Solexa technology to analyze the expression profiles of circRNAs in the endometrium from three goats at gestational day 5 (pre-receptive endometrium, PE) and three goats at gestational day 15 (receptive endometrium, RE). Overall, 21,813 circRNAs were identified, of which 5,925 circRNAs were specific to the RE and 9,078 were specific to the PE, which suggested high stage-specificity. Further analysis found 334 differentially expressed circRNAs in the RE compared with PE (P < 0.05). The analysis of the circRNA-miRNA interaction network further supported the idea that circRNAs act as miRNA sponges to regulate gene expression. Moreover, some circRNAs were regulated by estrogen (E2)/progesterone (P4) in endometrial epithelium cell lines (EECs) and endometrial stromal cell line (ESCs), and each circRNA molecule exhibited unique regulation characteristics with respect to E2 and P4.ConclusionsThese data provide an endometrium circRNA expression atlas corresponding to the biology of the goat receptive endometrium during embryo implantation.
Highlights
Recent studies have revealed that noncoding RNAs play important regulatory roles in the formation of endometrial receptivity
The box-plot distribution of the log10 FPKM (Fragment Per Kilobase of exon per Million fragments mapped) values suggested that the median and quartile values among the samples compared in terms of differential expression were almost identical
We focused our attention on the Gene Ontology (GO) terms with P < 0.05 and found that the hg-differentially expressed circRNAs (DECs) were categorized into 41 significant GO terms (Additional file 8)
Summary
Recent studies have revealed that noncoding RNAs play important regulatory roles in the formation of endometrial receptivity. Endometrial receptivity is essential for successful embryo implantation [1]. The receptive endometrium (RE) is a spatial and temporal phenomenon known as the “window of implantation” [2, 3] that is an absolutely necessary part of the reproductive process. The number of genes and proteins identified from previous studies that are involved in the establishment of RE has exponentially increased [12, 13]. The establishment of RE is a highly dynamic process that is post-transcriptionally regulated, and several epigenetically regulated genes in the endometrium have been identified [14].
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