Abstract
Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) has key roles in animal reproduction, including spermatogenesis and ovarian maturation. Many factors influence FSH secretion. However, despite the broad functions of microRNAs (miRNAs) via the regulation of target genes, little is known about their roles in FSH secretion. Our previous results suggested that miR-186-5p targets the 3′ UTR of FSHb; therefore, we examined whether miR-186-5p could regulate FSH secretion in rat anterior adenohypophyseal cells. miR-186-5p was transfected into rat anterior pituitary cells. The expression of FSHb and the secretion of FSH were examined by RT-qPCR and ELISA. A miR-186-5p mimic decreased the expression of FSHb compared with expression in the control group and decreased FSH secretion. In contrast, both the mRNA levels and secretion of FSH increased in response to miR-186-5p inhibitors. Our results demonstrate that miR-186-5p regulates FSH secretion by directly targeting the FSHb 3′ UTR, providing additional functional evidence for the importance of miRNAs in the regulation of animal reproduction.
Highlights
Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which is synthesized and secreted by the anterior pituitary gland, has important functions in both sexes in mammals
Cotransfection of miR-186-5p mimics and pmiR-FSHb-30UTR-WT into 293T cells led to a greater than 40% reduction in luciferase activity; when the miR-186-5p binding site of the FSHb 30 UTR was replaced with a mutant sequence, there was an increase in luciferase activity compared with that of the control group (Fig 1C)
In 2014, Fu et al reported that let-7a, miR-9, and miR-129-5p each had two target sites in FOXP2, and three mutant luciferase reporter constructs with mutations in one or two target sites were made
Summary
FSH, which is synthesized and secreted by the anterior pituitary gland, has important functions in both sexes in mammals. FSH stimulates ovarian follicle growth and maturation and promotes granulosa cell proliferation and differentiation [1, 3]. It is a heterodimeric glycoprotein composed of a common α subunit (α-GSU) and a unique β subunit (FSHb). FSH plays important roles in animal reproduction [4, 5] and is regulated by many factors. Kiezun et al showed that adiponectin plays a major role in FSH secretion during the estrous cycle [8]. Little is known about the regulation of FSH secretion at the post-transcriptional level
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