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Attenuated retinoic acid signaling is among the early responses in mouse uterus approaching embryo attachment

ABSTRACT: The uterus is transiently receptive for embryo implantation. It remains to be understood why the uterus does not reject semi-allogeneic or allogeneic embryos for implantation. Uterine early response genes at the time approaching embryo attachment may provide insights. Uteri from C57BL/6 pseudo-pregnant (PP) mice and pregnant (P) mice approaching embryo attachment on day 3 post-coitum (D3) @22 h were analyzed for early response genes by microarray. SAM algorithm retained 21,858 unique probesets. Principal component analysis (PCA) indicated a clear separation between the PP and P groups. There were 105 upregulated and 5 downregulated protein-coding genes in the pregnant uterus (fc>1.5 & q-value<5%). Gene ontology (GO) analysis of these upregulated genes revealed that 84% of the GO terms were related to immune responses, with a dominant natural killer (NK) cell activation signature. Among the top 8 upregulated protein-coding genes, Cyp26a1 inactivates retinoic acid (RA) while Lrat promotes vitamin A storage, both of which attenuate RA bioavailability; Atp6v0d2 and Gjb2 play roles in ion transport and transmembrane transport; Gzmb, Gzmc, and Il2rb are involved in immune responses; and Tdo2 is important for kynurenine pathway. Most of these genes or their related pathways have been implicated in immune regulations. RA signaling has been implicated in tolerance and immunity and uterine NK cells have been implicated in immunotolerance at the maternal-fetal interface in the placenta. The mechanisms of immune responses approaching embryo attachment remain to be elucidated. The coordinated effects of the early response genes may hold the keys to the question of why the uterus does not reject an implanting embryo.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE247638 | GEO | 2023/11/15

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:The female reproductive tract provides a unique environment for a successful pregnancy. It is imperative that the non-pregnant uterus be transformed into a capable environment for the establishment and maintenance of pregnancy. To achieve this, intimate cross-communication between the endometrium and the embryo is necessary at an early stage of life (Almiñana et al., 2012) a dialog which further influences subsequent fetal developmental potential (Fleming et al., 2004) and even post-natal performance. Initially, the trophoblast-derived estrogen is one of the most important embryonic signals to activate the maternal uterus for attachment (Pope & First 1985). Once the conceptus has established its position in the uterus (>d15), its development and growth also require many other maternal-embryonic cellular and molecular interactions to ensure substantial vascular changes in the endometrium and the chorioallantois, mainly development of capillaries under the lamina propriae, essential to provide full function to the pig epiteliochorial placenta required for a successful pregnancy. It is during the peri-attachment window between days 12-30 of gestation when most (20-30%) of the embryos produced in pig natural or artificial breeding die (reviewed by Edwards et al., 2012); embryonic death with a substantial impact on pig production efficiency, especially because it significantly limits litter size. Different studies have focused on the elucidation of the complex embryo-maternal communication network to reduce pregnancy loss. Among these, several studies examined gene expression during the peri-implantation stage, when the majority of embryonic losses occur, or have compared the transcriptomic profiles of pregnant and non- pregnant animals. Interestingly, these studies identified changes in the expression of genes that can -directly or indirectly- contribute to reproductive success such genes related to cell proliferation, hormone synthesis and metabolism, cell adhesion or those related to cytokine production and immune local response (Almiñana et al., 2012, Lin et al, 2015; Smolinska et al., 2019; Yang et al., 2020, Martinez et al., 2020, 2022). However, we should not forget that changes in gene expression do not always lead to a corresponding alteration in the expression of proteins, which are crucial components in all biological processes. The knowledge of the proteome is therefore equally relevant to gene expression changes, being able to help detecting both normal and abnormal physiological conditions. Proteome characterization can led to a better understanding of physiological processes and to identify proteins that may serve as potential biomarkers. To date, only a limited number of studies have unfortunately explored the protein expression profiles of the pig endometrium during the crucial period of maternal recognition of pregnancy, which occurs between day 9 and 13 (Jalali et al., 2015; Kaiser et al., 2006) or during mid/last-gestation, from 40 to 93 days of pregnancy (Chae et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2019). These studies have identified several proteins associated with endometrial function, which could play a role in maternal recognition and progression of pregnancy. Therefore, in order to fully understand the molecular interaction between the conceptus and its chorion with the endometrium, we have aimed to characterize the proteome profile of both, the non-pregnant (control) endometrium compared with that of the “pregnant”endometrium with present extraembryonic membranes between the 3rd and the 4th week period, when the major conceptus loss occurs.

Project description:Co-ordinated regulation of endometrial gene expression is essential for successful pregnancy establishment. A non-receptive uterine environment may be a key contributor to pregnancy loss, as the majority of pregnancy losses occur prior to embryo implantation. DNA methylation has been highlighted as a potential contributor in regulating early pregnancy events in the uterus. It was hypothesized that DNA methylation regulates expression of key genes in the uterus during pregnancy. To gain support for this hypothesis the correlation between DNA methylation and gene expression was tested. Endometrial samples from fertile and sub-fertile dairy cow strains were obtained at day 17 of pregnancy or the reproductive cycle. Microarrays were used to characterize genome-wide DNA methylation profiles and data compared with transcription profiles which have been previously reported. 39% of DNA methylation probes assayed mapped to RefSeq genes with transcription measurements. The 1,000 most significant correlations were used for subsequent analysis. Of these, 52% percent were negatively correlated with gene expression. When this gene list was compared with previously reported gene expression studies on the same tissues, 42% were differentially expressed when comparing pregnant and cycling animals and 11% were differentially expressed comparing pregnant fertile and sub-fertile animals. DNA methylation status was correlated with gene expression in several pathways implicated in early pregnancy events. Although these data do not provide direct evidence of a causative association between DNA methylation and gene expression, this study provides critical support for an effect of DNA methylation in early pregnancy events and highlights candidate genes for future studies. The estrous cycles of 24 lactating dairy cows were synchronized (at 58.8 (SEM 3.77) and 60.2 (SEM 1.51) days post calving in dairy cows of sub-fertile and fertile strains, respectively) and 14 received a single embryo transferred on day 7 of the estrous cycle. Animals were slaughtered at day 17 of the reproductive cycle and endometrial tissues (both caruncular and intercaruncular) were sampled. Selection criteria for the study included strain and calving date, and health postcalving was an exclusion criterion (cows with severe uterine infections or mastitis were excluded before being enrolled in the embryo transfer round). Cows in each strain were matched for calving number and age. A total of 10 cycling and 12 pregnant animals enrolled in the study were utilized, due to the associated costs of slaughtering the cows. These animals represented fertile (six pregnant and five cycling Holstein-Friesian cows with New Zealand ancestry/M-bM-^IM-$30% North American genetics, n=11, NZ) and sub-fertile (six pregnant and five cycling Holstein-Friesian cows with >87% North American ancestry, n=11, NA) phenotypes of Holstein-Friesian dairy cows

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Attenuated retinoic acid signaling is among the early responses in mouse uterus approaching embryo attachment

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