Department of Animal Resource Sciences, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Biol Reprod. 2020 Jun 23;103(1):85-93. doi: 10.1093/biolre/ioaa054.
Cumulus cells and mural granulosa cells (MGCs) play distinct roles during follicular development, and normal development of these cell lineages is critical for the female fertility. Transcriptomic diversification between the two cell lineages is obviously a critical mechanism for their functional diversification; however, the transcriptional regulators responsible for this event have not been fully defined. In this study, we sought to identify key transcriptional regulators responsible for the differential gene expression between the two cell lineages. In silico analysis of transcriptomic comparison between cumulus cells and MGCs identified several candidate regulators responsible for the diversification of the two cell lineages. Among them, we herein focused on forkhead box L2 (FOXL2) and showed that expressions of FOXL2 as well as its target transcripts were differentially regulated between cumulus cells and MGCs. The lower expression of FOXL2 in cumulus cells seemed to be due to the suppression by oocyte-derived paracrine signals. These results suggest that FOXL2 is one of the critical transcription factors that determine cumulus cell and MGC lineages under the control of oocytes.
卵丘细胞和壁颗粒细胞（MGC）在卵泡发育过程中发挥着不同的作用，这些细胞谱系的正常发育对女性生育能力至关重要。这两种细胞谱系之间的转录组多样化显然是其功能多样化的关键机制；然而，负责这一事件的转录调节剂尚未完全确定。在这项研究中，我们试图确定负责两种细胞谱系之间差异基因表达的关键转录调节剂。对卵丘细胞和 MGC 之间转录组比较的计算机分析确定了几个候选调节剂，它们负责两种细胞谱系的多样化。其中，我们在此重点关注叉头框 L2（FOXL2），并表明 FOXL2 及其靶转录物的表达在卵丘细胞和 MGC 之间存在差异调节。卵丘细胞中 FOXL2 的低表达似乎是由于卵母细胞来源的旁分泌信号的抑制。这些结果表明，FOXL2 是决定卵母细胞控制下的卵丘细胞和 MGC 谱系的关键转录因子之一。
