Project description:Goal: To identify small RNA associated with the decision of undifferentiated spermatogonia to commit to a pathway of differentiation. Methods: testis small RNA profiles of 6 juvenile wild-type rhesus monkeys (3 vehicle-treated; 3 gonadotropin treated) were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate, using Ion Torrent. The sequence reads that passed filters were analyzed with miRDeep2, HTSeq counts and edgeR. qRT–PCR validation was performed using SYBR Green assays Results: We mapped about 3 million sequence reads per sample to the rhesus monkey genome (rheMac 2 and rheMac 8.0.1) and identified 932 small RNAs in the testes of wild type monkeys with Bowtie and miRDeep2 workflow. Approximately a combined 7% of unique transcripts showed differential expression between vehicle and gonadotropin treatment for 48 and 96h, with a fold change ≥1.5 and p value <0.05. Altered expression of 12 genes was confirmed with qRT–PCR, substantiating the RNA-seq findings. Conclusions: The testis transcriptome of the juvenile monkey contained 932 non coding smallRNA. Gonadotropin stimulation for 48 h resulted in the commitment of spermatogonia to differentiate and this was associated with the emergence of 51 differentially expressed genes. Funding support: NIH R01 HD072189 to Tony Plant
Project description:Identification and annotation of all the genes in the sequenced Drosophila genome is a work in progress. Wild-type testis function requires many genes and is thus of potentially high value for the identification of transcription units. We therefore undertook a survey of the repertoire of genes expressed in the Drosophila testis by computational and microarray analysis. We generated 3141 high-quality testis expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Testis ESTs computationally collapsed into 1560 cDNA set used for further analysis. Of those, 11% correspond to named genes, and 33% provide biological evidence for a predicted gene. A surprising 47% fail to align with existing ESTs and 16% with predicted genes in the current genome release. EST frequency and microarray expression profiles indicate that the testis mRNA population is highly complex and shows an extended range of transcript abundance. Furthermore, >80% of the genes expressed in the testis showed onefold overexpression relative to ovaries, or gonadectomized flies. Additionally, >3% showed more than threefold overexpression at p <0.05. Surprisingly, 22% of the genes most highly overexpressed in testis match Drosophila genomic sequence, but not predicted genes. These data strongly support the idea that sequencing additional cDNA libraries from defined tissues, such as testis, will be important tools for refined annotation of the Drosophila genome. Additionally, these data suggest that the number of genes in Drosophila will significantly exceed the conservative estimate of 13,601. Keywords: other
Project description:The sequence of gene regulatory events that drive neonatal germ cell development in the mammalian testis is not yet clear. We assessed changes in mRNA utilization in the neonatal testis at 1 and 4 dpp, times when the testis contains quiescent gonocytes (1 dpp) and proliferating spermatogonia (4 dpp). There are not thought to be major changes in the nature or number of somatic cells over that interval. We used microarrays to detail the global expression levels of mRNA distribution between non-translating mRNAs and efficiently translating mRNAs during testis development at 1 dpp and 4 dpp
Project description:Identification and annotation of all the genes in the sequenced Drosophila genome is a work in progress. Wild-type testis function requires many genes and is thus of potentially high value for the identification of transcription units. We therefore undertook a survey of the repertoire of genes expressed in the Drosophila testis by computational and microarray analysis. We generated 3141 high-quality testis expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Testis ESTs computationally collapsed into 1560 cDNA set used for further analysis. Of those, 11% correspond to named genes, and 33% provide biological evidence for a predicted gene. A surprising 47% fail to align with existing ESTs and 16% with predicted genes in the current genome release. EST frequency and microarray expression profiles indicate that the testis mRNA population is highly complex and shows an extended range of transcript abundance. Furthermore, >80% of the genes expressed in the testis showed onefold overexpression relative to ovaries, or gonadectomized flies. Additionally, >3% showed more than threefold overexpression at p <0.05. Surprisingly, 22% of the genes most highly overexpressed in testis match Drosophila genomic sequence, but not predicted genes. These data strongly support the idea that sequencing additional cDNA libraries from defined tissues, such as testis, will be important tools for refined annotation of the Drosophila genome. Additionally, these data suggest that the number of genes in Drosophila will significantly exceed the conservative estimate of 13,601.