Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2025, Vol. 56 ›› Issue (11): 5545-5562.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2025.11.016

• Animal Biotechnology and Reproduction • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Dynamic Transcriptional Differences in Porcine Round Spermatids Resolved Based on scRNA-seq

MA Yuan1(), JIN Haoyan1, WANG Nana1, XIE Yaru1, LI Tianjiao2, ZHANG Lingkai1,*()   

  1. 1. Key Laboratory of Ruminant Molecular and Cellular Breeding of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, College of Animal Science and Technology, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China
    2. School of Life Sciences, Cangzhou Normal University, Cangzhou 061000, China
  • Received:2025-03-25 Online:2025-11-23 Published:2025-11-27
  • Contact: ZHANG Lingkai E-mail:myuan1809@163.com;zhanglklab2023@163.com

Abstract:

In order to investigate the dynamic transcriptional differences of round spermatids, the present study was conducted on adult Guanzhong black pigs (10-12 months), based on 10×single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data from testicular tissues, to analyze germ cell clustering and round spermatids reclustering, and to functionally annotate and enrich differentially expressed genes in round spermatids, with a view to investigating the developmental changes of round spermatozoa. We analyzed germ cell clustering and round spermatids reclustering, as well as functional annotation and enrichment of differentially expressed genes in round spermatids, in order to investigate the developmental changes of round spermatids. The results identified 5 porcine round spermatids types, mapped the cellular trajectories of early round spermatids from development to the spermatid stage, and found that the differentially expressed genes in round spermatids and spermatozoa were related to the process of protein binding and endoplasmic reticulum activity, mainly enriched in pathways such as spermatid development through GO and KEGG enrichment analyses; histone variant analyses showed that the fischerin family and the convertin family might also play an important role in the development of porcine round spermatids. Candidate genes were verified by immunohistochemical assays. Based on the results, it was hypothesized that SUN5, SPATA3, and APOC4 could be used as regulatory genes for round spermatids development. This study can provide theoretical basis for the subsequent injection of round spermatozoa into the cytoplasm of the egg by biotechnology, and also provide reference information for porcine round spermatids monocytomics.

Key words: round spermatids, scRNA-seq, porcine

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