Dataset Information

Transcriptomal profiling of bovine ovarian granulosa and theca interna cells in primary culture in comparison with their in vivo counterparts.

ABSTRACT: In vitro culture of ovarian granulosa cells and theca cells has been very important for our understanding of their function and regulation. One of the most eagerly sought attributes of cell culture is the use of chemically-defined conditions. However, even under such in vitro conditions cell behaviour could differ from the in vivo situation because of differences in oxygen tension, nutrients, adhesion matrix and other factors. To examine this further we compared the transcriptomes of both granulosa cells and cells from the theca interna that were cultured in what are arguably the best in vitro conditions for maintaining the 'follicular' phenotypes of both tissue types, as displayed by their respective freshly-isolated counterparts. The array data analysed are from recently published data and use the same sizes of bovine follicles (small antral 3-6 mm) and the same Affymetrix arrays. We conducted analysis using Partek, Ingenuity Pathway Analysis and GOEAST. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering clearly separated the in vivo from the in vitro groups for both cells types and transcriptomes were more homogeneous upon culture. In both cell cultures behaviours associated with cell adhesion, migration and interaction with matrix or substrate were more abundant. However, the pathways involved generally differed between the two cell types. With the thecal cultures a gene expression signature of an immune response was more abundant, probably by leukocytes amongst the cells cultured from the theca interna. These results indicate differences between in vivo and in vitro that should be considered when interpreting in vitro data.

SUBMITTER: Hatzirodos N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5345798 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Transcriptomal profiling of bovine ovarian granulosa and theca interna cells in primary culture in comparison with their in vivo counterparts.

Hatzirodos Nicholas N Glister Claire C Hummitzsch Katja K Irving-Rodgers Helen F HF Knight Philip G PG Rodgers Raymond J RJ

PloS one 20170310 3

In vitro culture of ovarian granulosa cells and theca cells has been very important for our understanding of their function and regulation. One of the most eagerly sought attributes of cell culture is the use of chemically-defined conditions. However, even under such in vitro conditions cell behaviour could differ from the in vivo situation because of differences in oxygen tension, nutrients, adhesion matrix and other factors. To examine this further we compared the transcriptomes of both granul ...[more]

PMID: 28282394

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Project description:The theca interna layer of the ovarian follicle forms during the antral stage of follicle development and lies adjacent to and directly outside the follicular basal lamina. It supplies androgens and communicates with the granulosa cells and the oocyte by extracellular signaling. To better understand developmental changes in the theca interna, we undertook transcriptome profiling of the theca interna from small (3-5 mm, n = 10) and large (9-12 mm, n = 5) healthy antral bovine follicles, representing a calculated >7-fold increase in the amount of thecal tissue. Principal Component Analysis and hierarchical classification of the signal intensity plots for the arrays showed no clustering of the theca interna samples into groups depending on follicle size or subcategories of small follicles. From the over 23,000 probe sets analysed, only 76 were differentially expressed between large and small healthy follicles. Some of the differentially expressed genes were associated with processes such as myoblast differentiation, protein ubiquitination, nitric oxide and transforming growth factor β signaling. The most significant pathway affected from our analyses was found to be Wnt signaling, which was suppressed in large follicles via down-regulation of WNT2B and up-regulation of the inhibitor FRZB. These changes in the transcriptional profile could have been due to changes in cellular function or alternatively since the theca interna is composed of a number of different cell types it could have been due to any systematic change in the volume density of any particular cell type. However, our study suggests that the transcriptional profile of the theca interna is relatively stable during antral follicle development unlike that of granulosa cells observed previously. Thus both the cellular composition and cellular behavior of the theca interna and its contribution to follicular development appear to be relatively constant throughout the follicle growth phase examined.

Project description:BackgroundThe major function of the ovary is to produce oocytes for fertilisation. Oocytes mature in follicles surrounded by nurturing granulosa cells and all are enclosed by a basal lamina. During growth, granulosa cells replicate and a large fluid-filled cavity (the antrum) develops in the centre. Only follicles that have enlarged to over 10 mm can ovulate in cows. In mammals, the number of primordial follicles far exceeds the numbers that ever ovulate and atresia or regression of follicles is a mechanism to regulate the number of oocytes ovulated and to contribute to the timing of ovulation. To better understand the molecular basis of follicular atresia, we undertook transcriptome profiling of granulosa cells from healthy (n = 10) and atretic (n = 5) bovine follicles at early antral stages (< 5 mm).ResultsPrincipal Component Analysis (PCA) and hierarchical classification of the signal intensity plots for the arrays showed primary clustering into two groups, healthy and atretic. These analyses and size-frequency plots of coefficients of variation of signal intensities revealed that the healthy follicles were more heterogeneous. Examining the differentially-expressed genes the most significantly affected functions in atretic follicles were cell death, organ development, tissue development and embryonic development. The overall processes influenced by transcription factor gene TP53 were predicted to be activated, whereas those of MYC were inhibited on the basis of known interactions with the genes in our dataset. The top ranked canonical pathway contained signalling molecules common to various inflammatory/fibrotic pathways such as the transforming growth factor-β and tumour necrosis factor-α pathways. The two most significant networks also reflect this pattern of tissue remodelling/fibrosis gene expression. These networks also contain molecules which are present in the canonical pathways of hepatic fibrosis/hepatic stellate cell activation and transforming growth factor-β signalling and were up regulated.ConclusionsSmall healthy antral follicles, which have a number of growth outcomes, exhibit greater variability in gene expression, particularly in genes associated with cell division and other growth-related functions. Atresia, on the other hand, not only involves cell death but clearly is an active process similar to wound healing.

Project description:Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMP) are firmly implicated as intra-ovarian regulators of follicle development and steroidogenesis. We carried out a microarray analysis to examine global changes in gene expression in bovine theca cells in response to treatment with BMP6 alone and in combination with LH. There was a major effect of BMP6 treatment on the gene expression profile with a much weaker effect of LH. None of these differences in response to LH treatment was found to be statistically significant after applying Benjamini-Hochberg correction. BMP6 significantly (>2-fold; P<0.01) up- or down-regulated expression of 445 genes. Insulin-like peptide 3 (INSL3) was the most heavily down-regulated gene (-43-fold) with CYP17A1 and other key transcripts involved in TC steroidogenesis including LHCGR, INHA, STAR, CYP11A1 and HSD3B1 also down-regulated. BMP6 also reduced expression of NR5A1 encoding steroidogenic factor-1 known to target the promoter regions of the aforementioned genes. Real-time PCR confirmed these findings and also revealed a marked reduction in expression of INSL3 receptor (RXFP2). Secretion of INSL3 protein and androstenedione were also suppressed suggesting a functional link between BMP and INSL3 pathways in controlling androgen synthesis. Theca interna cells (TC) were isolated from adult bovine ovaries obtained from the slaughterhouse. TC pooled from approximately 50 individual 4-6mm follicles were plated out in in 24-well plates (0.5 x106 viable cells/ml/well) and cultured for 6 days under defined serum-free conditions with treatments present on days 3-6 inclusive. TC were treated for 4 days with BMP6 (10 ng/ml) under both basal and LH-stimulated conditions (M-BM-1 160 pg LH/ml). These dose-levels of BMP6 and LH were chosen because they elicited optimal responses in our previous studies. The experiment was replicated four times with TC harvested from different batches of ovaries. Total RNA was isolated using the Ribopure RNA isolation kit (Ambion) according to the manufacturerM-bM-^@M-^Ys instructions. RNA yield and quality were evaluated by spectrophotometry at 260/280 nm and agarose gel electrophoresis before submitting 5 M-NM-<g of each RNA sample (n = 16 comprising 4 biological replicates x 4 treatment conditions) to an accredited Affymetrix service provider for microarray analysis using the bovine genome array GeneChip (n=16 arrays).

Dataset Information

Transcriptomal profiling of bovine ovarian granulosa and theca interna cells in primary culture in comparison with their in vivo counterparts.

Publications

Transcriptomal profiling of bovine ovarian granulosa and theca interna cells in primary culture in comparison with their in vivo counterparts.

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