The effect of heat stress on gene expression, synthesis of steroids, and apoptosis in bovine granulosa cells.

Summer heat stress (HS) is a major contributing factor in low fertility in lactating dairy cows in hot environments. Heat stress inhibits ovarian follicular development leading to diminished reproductive efficiency of dairy cows during summer. Ovarian follicle development is a complex process. During follicle development, granulosa cells (GCs) replicate, secrete hormones, and support the growth of the oocyte. To obtain an overview of the effects of heat stress on GCs, digital gene expression profiling was employed to screen and identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs; false discovery rate (FDR) ≤ 0.001, fold change ≥2) of cultured GCs during heat stress. A total of 1211 DEGs including 175 upregulated and 1036 downregulated ones were identified, of which DEGs can be classified into Gene Ontology (GO) categories and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways. The results suggested that heat stress triggers a dramatic and complex program of altered gene expression in GCs. We hypothesized that heat stress could induce the apoptosis and dysfunction of GCs. Real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to evaluate the expression of steroidogenic genes (steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (Star), cytochrome P-450 (CYP11A1), CYP19A1, and steroidogenic factor 1 (SF-1)) and apoptosis-related genes (caspase-3, BCL-2, and BAX). Radio immunoassay (RIA) was used to analyze the level of 17β-estradiol (E2) and progesterone (P4). We also assessed the apoptosis of GCs by flow cytometry. Our data suggested that heat stress induced GC apoptosis through the BAX/BCL-2 pathway and reduced the steroidogenic gene messenger RNA (mRNA) expression and E2 synthesis. These results suggest that the decreased function of GCs may cause ovarian dysfunction and offer an improved understanding of the molecular mechanism responsible for the low fertility in cattle in summer.