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Systematic identification and characterization of miRNAs and piRNAs from porcine testes

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Abstract

microRNAs (miRNAs) and PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) execute important regulatory roles in testis development and spermatogenesis, while previous studies mainly focus on the expression profiles in immature and mature porcine testes, which may cause a bottleneck for further understanding their complex physiological processes in porcine testes development and spermatogenesis. Thus, we presented the expression and characterization of miRNAs and piRNAs in DS (60-day-old), DN (90-day-old), DT (120-day-old) and DF (150-day-old) pig testes. In total, 12,834,628, 13,359,726, 12,851,249 and 12,938,601 clean reads were generated from these libraries, respectively. 293 mature and 36 novel miRNAs as well as 4923 piRNA clusters were identified from pig testes, and they showed an age-dependent manner. GO enrichment analysis of miRNA target genes and piRNA generated genes showed that they participated widely in regulating the pig spermatogenesis process. In addition, 12 differentially expressed miRNAs were randomly selected to validate using qRT-PCR. Our results provided novel comprehensive expression profiles of miRNAs and piRNAs in pig testes at different stages of sexual maturity, which will promote our knowledge of them in regulating the pig testes development and spermatogenesis process.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by China Agriculture Research System (CARS-36), Hunan Provincial Innovation Foundation for Postgraduate (CX2015B251) and Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Cultivating Fund of Hunan Agricultural University (YB2015001).

Author contributions

BW, MR and BC conceived and designed the experiments. BW, MR, BC, MW, FP, LD, CH, SZ, ZL performed the experiments. BW and MR analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript. Authors would like to thank JY for critical reading of the manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. Bo Weng and Maoliang Ran contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Hunan Agriculture University, Changsha, 410128, Hunan, China

    Bo Weng, Maoliang Ran, Bin Chen, Fuzhi Peng, Lianhua Dong & Changqing He

  2. Xiangtan Bureau of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine and Aquatic Product, Xiangtan, 411104, China

    Maisheng Wu, Shanwen Zhang & Zhaohui Li

  3. Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory for Genetic Improvement of Domestic Animal, Changsha, 410128, China

    Bo Weng, Maoliang Ran, Bin Chen, Fuzhi Peng, Lianhua Dong & Changqing He

Authors
  1. Bo Weng
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Correspondence to Bin Chen.

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Conflict of interest

Bo Weng declares that he/she does not have conflict of interest. Maoliang Ran declares that he/she does not have conflict of interest. Bin Chen declares that he/she does not have conflict of interest. Maisheng Wu declares that he/she does not have conflict of interest. Fuzhi Peng declares that he/she does not have conflict of interest. Lianhua Dong declares that he/she does not have conflict of interest. Changqing He declares that he/she does not have conflict of interest. Shanwen Zhang declares that he/she does not have conflict of interest. Zhaohui Li declares that he/she does not have conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

Animals care was performed in accordance with the guidelines of the declaration of Helsinki. All experimental protocols were approved by the animal welfare committee of College of Animal Science and Technology, Hunan Agriculture University, Changsha city, Hunan province, P. R. China.

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Weng, B., Ran, M., Chen, B. et al. Systematic identification and characterization of miRNAs and piRNAs from porcine testes. Genes Genom 39, 1047–1057 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13258-017-0573-0

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