Transcriptome Profiling of Developing Testes and First Wave of Spermatogenesis in the Rat

Yan Zhang; Zaixia Liu; Xia Yun; Baiyin Batu; Zheng Yang; Xinlai Zhang; Wenguang Zhang; Taodi Liu

doi:10.3390/genes14010229

Transcriptome Profiling of Developing Testes and First Wave of Spermatogenesis in the Rat

Genes (Basel). 2023 Jan 16;14(1):229. doi: 10.3390/genes14010229.

Authors

Yan Zhang¹, Zaixia Liu², Xia Yun¹, Baiyin Batu¹, Zheng Yang¹, Xinlai Zhang¹, Wenguang Zhang², Taodi Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ Medical Neurobiology Laboratory, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Inner Mongolia Medical University, Hohhot 010110, China.
² College of Animal Science, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China.

Abstract

Spermatogenesis is a complicated course of several rigorous restrained steps that spermatogonial stem cells undergo to develop into highly specialized spermatozoa; however, specific genes and signal pathways, which regulate the amplification, differentiation and maturation of these cells, remain unclear. We performed bioinformatics analyses to investigate the dynamic changes of the gene expression patterns at three time points in the course of the first wave of rat spermatogenesis. Differently expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, and the features of DEGs were further analyzed with GO (Gene Ontology), KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) and Short Time-series Expression Miner (STEM). A total of 2954 differentially expressed genes were identified. By using STEM, the top 10 key genes were selected in the profile according to the enrichment results, and the distinguishable biological functions encoded by these DEGs were automatically divided into three parts. Genes from 6, 8 and 10 days were related to biosynthesis, immune response and cell junction, and genes from 14, 15 and 16 days were related to energy metabolic pathways. The results also suggest that genes from 29, 31 and 35 days may shift metabolic to sperm motility, sperm flagellum and cilium movement.

Keywords: differentially expressed genes; spermatogenesis; spermatogonial stem cells; transcriptome.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Gene Expression Profiling / methods
Male
Rats
Semen
Sperm Motility
Spermatogenesis / genetics
Testis*
Transcriptome*

Grants and funding

This research was funded by Inner Mongolia Natural Science Foundation project (2022LHMS03002); Inner Mongolia Higher Education Science and Technology Research Project (NJZY22658); Key project of Inner Mongolia Medical University (YKD2022ZD012); Science and Technology Major Project of Inner Mongolia (2020ZD0003); The National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFD1200905).