Institute of Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, 611130, Sichuan, China.
College of Life Science, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, 625014, Sichuan, China.
Nat Commun. 2022 Jan 10;13(1):131. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-27800-9.
Folliculogenesis is a complex biological process involving a central oocyte and its surrounding somatic cells. Three-dimensional chromatin architecture is an important transcription regulator; however, little is known about its dynamics and role in transcriptional regulation of granulosa cells during chicken folliculogenesis. We investigate the transcriptomic dynamics of chicken granulosa cells over ten follicular stages and assess the chromatin architecture dynamics and how it influences gene expression in granulosa cells at three key stages: the prehierarchical small white follicles, the first largest preovulatory follicles, and the postovulatory follicles. Our results demonstrate the consistency between the global reprogramming of chromatin architecture and the transcriptomic divergence during folliculogenesis, providing ample evidence for compartmentalization rearrangement, variable organization of topologically associating domains, and rewiring of the long-range interaction between promoter and enhancers. These results provide key insights into avian reproductive biology and provide a foundational dataset for the future in-depth functional characterization of granulosa cells.
卵泡发生是一个涉及中央卵母细胞及其周围体细胞的复杂生物学过程。三维染色质结构是一个重要的转录调控因子；然而，关于其在鸡卵泡发生过程中对颗粒细胞转录调控的动态和作用知之甚少。我们研究了十个卵泡阶段中鸡颗粒细胞的转录组动态，并评估了染色质结构的动态及其在三个关键阶段（前等级小白色卵泡、第一个最大的排卵前卵泡和排卵后卵泡）如何影响颗粒细胞中的基因表达。我们的结果表明，染色质结构的全局重编程与卵泡发生过程中的转录组分化之间具有一致性，为区室化重排、拓扑关联域的可变组织以及启动子和增强子之间的长程相互作用的重新布线提供了充分的证据。这些结果为禽类生殖生物学提供了重要的见解，并为未来深入研究颗粒细胞的功能提供了基础数据集。
