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Abstract
Sexual dimorphism is a relevant factor in animal science, since it can affect the gene expression of economically important traits. Eventually, the interest in the prenatal phase in a transcriptome study may not comprise the period of development in which male and female conceptuses are phenotypically divergent. Therefore, it would be interesting if sex differentiation could be performed using transcriptome data, with no need for extra techniques. In this study, the sex of pig conceptuses (embryos at 25 days-old and fetuses at 35 days-old) was determined by reads counts per million (CPM) of Y chromosome-linked genes that were discrepant among samples. Thus, ten genes were used: DDX3Y, KDM5D, ZFY, EIF2S3Y, EIF1AY, LOC110255320, LOC110257894, LOC396706, LOC100625207, and LOC110255257. Conceptuses that presented reads CPM sum for these genes (ΣCPMchrY) greater than 400 were classified as males and those with ΣCPMchrY below 2 were classified as females. It was demonstrated that the sex identification can be performed at early stages of pig development from RNA-sequencing analysis of genes mapped on Y chromosome. Additionally, these results reinforce that sex determination is a mechanism conserved across mammals, highlighting the importance of using pigs as an animal model to study sex determination during human prenatal development.
Highlights
Maternal nutrition may affect progeny anatomy, physiology and metabolism during critical periods of prenatal life, which is described as fetal programming [1]
These analyses may be influenced by sexual dimorphism, since males and females are marked by significant biological differences that can modify the gene expression of economically important traits [12]
Considering that in early prenatal pig development male and female conceptuses are not phenotypically divergent and the sexual dimorphism may affect the transcriptome analyses, we aimed to demonstrate that the sex of 25 and 35 days-old conceptuses can be determined by read counting of genes mapped on Y chromosome using already available RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data
Summary
Maternal nutrition may affect progeny anatomy, physiology and metabolism during critical periods of prenatal life, which is described as fetal programming [1]. Sus scrofa is a prolific specie with a relatively short developmental period, besides being a cheaper and easier mammalian model organism to maintain [7,8]. In this context, transcriptome studies using RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) performed in pigs highlight the relevance of the data obtained in this specie for human-related researches. The RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) approach generates a comprehensive picture of gene expression levels at different developmental stages and physiological conditions [9,10,11]. These analyses may be influenced by sexual dimorphism, since males and females are marked by significant biological differences that can modify the gene expression of economically important traits [12]
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