Omariba Gideon, Tong Li, Wang Maochun, Li Kai, Zhou Yuxun, Xiao Junhua
The College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Donghua University, 2999 North Renmin Road, Songjiang, Shanghai, 200237, China.
Genes Genomics. 2018 Mar;40(3):295-304. doi: 10.1007/s13258-017-0633-5. Epub 2017 Nov 21.
Puberty onset is a milestone in sexual development. A tumor suppress gene (TSG) network had been reported to be involved in the regulation of female puberty onset. The observations in rodents and primates showed a potential link between microRNAs and puberty onset. To figure out what miRNAs play roles in this important biological process, profilings of microRNAs in the hypothalamus of female mice from three different pubertal stages, juvenile [postnatal day (P10)], early pubertal (P25) and pubertal (P30) were performed on the Affymetrix GeneChip miRNA 3.0 Arrays, the cerebral cortex (CTX) was used as a control tissue. 20 miRNAs were shown to be differentially expressed in hypothalamus (fold change > 1.5, P < 0.05), but not in CTX during the transition from juvenile to pubertal. Four of them were validated by real-time quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) method. 1018 genes were predicted as the targets of these miRNAs. Further bioinformatics analysis suggested that these target genes were involved in many important signaling pathways, especially in the cancer related pathways. We also found that about 90% of these target genes were expressed in the hypothalamus, as well as in the immortalized GnRH-producing GT1-7 cells, which provided additional evidence that these miRNAs could be female puberty onset related. Here we present a novel comprehensive data set of miRNA gene expression during the puberty onset; and it provides an important recourse for the future functional characterization of individual miRNAs and their targets in mouse hypothalamus and in GT1-7 cells.
青春期启动是性发育中的一个里程碑。据报道，一个肿瘤抑制基因（TSG）网络参与了女性青春期启动的调节。在啮齿动物和灵长类动物中的观察结果显示了微小RNA与青春期启动之间的潜在联系。为了弄清楚哪些微小RNA在这个重要的生物学过程中发挥作用，我们使用Affymetrix GeneChip miRNA 3.0芯片对来自三个不同青春期阶段（幼年[出生后第（P10）天]、青春期早期（P25）和青春期（P30））的雌性小鼠下丘脑进行了微小RNA谱分析，将大脑皮层（CTX）用作对照组织。结果显示，在从幼年到青春期的转变过程中，有20种微小RNA在下丘脑中差异表达（倍数变化>1.5，P<0.05），但在CTX中没有差异表达。其中4种通过实时定量RT-PCR（qRT-PCR）方法得到了验证。预测有1018个基因是这些微小RNA的靶标。进一步的生物信息学分析表明，这些靶标基因参与了许多重要的信号通路，尤其是与癌症相关的通路。我们还发现，这些靶标基因中约90%在下丘脑以及永生化的促性腺激素释放激素分泌细胞GT1-7中表达，这为这些微小RNA可能与女性青春期启动相关提供了额外的证据。在这里，我们展示了一个关于青春期启动期间微小RNA基因表达的全新综合数据集；它为未来对单个微小RNA及其在小鼠下丘脑和GT1-7细胞中的靶标的功能表征提供了重要资源。
