ACTA VETERINARIA ET ZOOTECHNICA SINICA ›› 2019, Vol. 50 ›› Issue (7): 1396-1404.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2019.07.008

• ANIMAL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND REPRODUCTION • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Identification and Analysis of miRNAs at Different Developmental Stages in Hu Sheep Ovaries

XIE Lingli, LI Ai, HUANG Wanlong, ZHANG Xiuxiu, MIAO Xiangyang*   

  1. State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition, Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China
  • Received:2019-01-28 Online:2019-07-23 Published:2019-07-23

Abstract: The aim of this study was to analyze the expression level of miRNAs in Hu sheep ovaries at different developmental stages and to understand the expression of miRNAs and their regulatory mechanism. In this study, RNA-seq was used to identify miRNAs in ovarian tissues of 1 month and 8 months old Hu sheep. Bioinformatics methods were used to predict target genes of differentially expressed miRNAs. GO and KEGG functional annotations were performed on target genes to screen miRNAs and biological processes involved in ovarian development. The results showed that the numbers of known miRNAs expressed in the 6 samples were 2 186, 2 091, 2 217, 2 136, 2 176 and 2 088, respectively. The number of novel miRNAs was 613, 567, 668, 640, 662 and 450, respectively. 701 novel differentially expressed miRNAs and 38 known differentially expressed miRNAs were identified. GO and KEGG analysis of genes targeting to differentially expressed miRNAs revealed that they mainly were enriched in vascular endothelial growth factor pathway and ovarian steroidogenesis. The qRT-PCR verification result of 3 differential miRNAs was consistent with the sequencing results. Target genes of oar-let-7b, oar-miR-29a, oar-miR-134-3p, oar-miR-541-3p were enriched in the biological processes associated with ovarian development such as TGF-beta signaling pathway and ovarian follicular growth. The target genes of oar-miR-148a and oar-miR-136 regulate granulosa cell proliferation and steroidogenesis. It's inferred that they are involved in the regulation of ovarian development in sheep.

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