College of Marine Sciences, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China.
Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science (South China) of Ministry of Agriculture, Guangzhou 510640, China.
Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Dec 13;23(24):15840. doi: 10.3390/ijms232415840.
In China, the is classified as a national class II-protected animal. The development of populations has been affected by a variety of factors over the past few decades, with severe declines occurring. Considering the likelihood of continued population declines of the in the future, it is critical to investigate the currently unknown characteristics of gonadal differentiation and sex-related genes for conservation. In this study, the Illumina sequencing platform was used to sequence the gonadal transcriptome of the to identify the pathways and genes related to gonadal development and analyze the expression differences in the gonads. A total of 12,002 DEGs were identified, with 7220 being significantly expressed in the ovary and 4782 being significantly expressed in the testis. According to the functional enrichment results, the cell cycle, RNA transport, apoptosis, Wnt signaling pathway, p53 signaling pathway, and prolactin signaling pathway play important roles in sex development in the . Furthermore, the sequence characterization and evolutionary analysis revealed that AMH, DAX1, NANOS1, and AR of the are highly conserved. Specifically, the qRT-PCR results from various tissues showed significant differences in AMH, DAX1, NANOS1, and AR expression levels in the gonads of both sexes of . These analyses indicated that AMH, DAX1, NANOS1, and AR may play important roles in the differentiation and development of gonads. To our best knowledge, this study is the first to analyze the gonadal transcriptome and identify the structures of sex-related genes, laying the foundation for future research.
在中国，属于国家二级保护动物。在过去几十年中，种群的发展受到多种因素的影响，数量严重下降。考虑到未来的种群数量可能会继续下降，因此，研究目前未知的性分化和与性别相关的基因对于保护至关重要。在本研究中，我们使用 Illumina 测序平台对的性腺转录组进行测序，以鉴定与性腺发育相关的途径和基因，并分析性腺中的表达差异。共鉴定出 12002 个 DEGs，其中 7220 个在卵巢中显著表达，4782 个在睾丸中显著表达。根据功能富集结果，细胞周期、RNA 转运、细胞凋亡、Wnt 信号通路、p53 信号通路和催乳素信号通路在的性别发育中起着重要作用。此外，序列特征和进化分析表明，的 AMH、DAX1、NANOS1 和 AR 高度保守。具体而言，来自不同组织的 qRT-PCR 结果显示，雌雄两性的性腺中 AMH、DAX1、NANOS1 和 AR 的表达水平存在显著差异。这些分析表明，AMH、DAX1、NANOS1 和 AR 可能在的性腺分化和发育中发挥重要作用。据我们所知，这项研究首次分析了的性腺转录组并鉴定了与性别相关的基因结构，为未来的研究奠定了基础。
