Abstract
BackgroundOvarian follicular development and hormone secretion are complex and coordinated biological processes which will usually be altered during pregnancy. Ovarian function is tightly regulated by a multitude of genes, and also by some specific miRNAs. It is necessary to identify the differentially expressed miRNAs in the ovaries of pregnant and non-pregnant mammals, in order to further understand the role of miRNA-mediated post-transcriptional regulation in mammalian reproduction. Here, we performed a comprehensive search for hircine miRNAs using two small RNA sequencing libraries prepared from the ovaries of pregnant and non-pregnant goats.Results617 conserved and 7 putative novel miRNAs were identified in the hircine ovaries. A total of 471 conserved miRNAs (76.34%) were co-expressed in both pregnant and non-pregnant libraries, and 90 pregnancy-specific and 56 non-pregnancy-specific conserved miRNAs were identified. Additionally, 407 unique miRNAs (65.96%) were significantly differentially expressed in the pregnant and non-pregnant libraries, of which 294 were upregulated and 113 were downregulated in the pregnant library compared to the non-pregnant library. Further analysis showed that miR-143 was predicted to bind to the target sequences of Frizzled-6 and -3 receptor genes in the Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathway, and let-7b may target the Activin receptor I and Smad 2/3 genes in the TGF-beta signaling pathway. The expression level of 5 randomly selected miRNAs were analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR (q-PCR), and the results demonstrated that the expression patterns were consistent with the Solexa sequencing results.ConclusionsThe identification and characterization of differentially expressed miRNAs in the ovaries of pregnant and non-pregnant goats provides important information on the role of miRNA in the regulation of the ovarian development and function. This data will be helpful to facilitate studies on the regulation of miRNAs during mammalian reproduction.
Highlights
Ovarian follicular development and hormone secretion are complex and coordinated biological processes which will usually be altered during pregnancy
Massive parallel sequencing in the newborn mouse ovaries showed the expression of 398 known miRNAs, among which the Xlinked mir-503, mir-672 and mir-465 family were found to be preferentially expressed in the testes and ovaries which play important roles in folliculogenesis and spermatogenesis, respectively [10]
Overview of sequencing data In order to identify differentially expressed miRNAs in the ovaries of pregnant and non-pregnant goats, two small RNA libraries were constructed by Solexa sequencing
Summary
Ovarian follicular development and hormone secretion are complex and coordinated biological processes which will usually be altered during pregnancy. Ovarian function is tightly regulated by a multitude of genes, and by some specific miRNAs. It is necessary to identify the differentially expressed miRNAs in the ovaries of pregnant and non-pregnant mammals, in order to further understand the role of miRNA-mediated posttranscriptional regulation in mammalian reproduction. Pregnancy is a complex reproductive process, which is tightly regulated by various endocrine factors and a large number of genes. The result will help to further understand the role of miRNAs in reproductive biological processes, including follicular development, hormone secretion, luteinization and the maintenance of pregnancy, and may help to identify miRNAs which could be potentially used to regulate hircine reproduction and breeding practice in the future
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