CAS and Shandong Province Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China.
Laboratory for Marine Biology and Biotechnology, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao 266237, China.
Genes (Basel). 2023 Feb 23;14(3):564. doi: 10.3390/genes14030564.
Insulin-like androgenic gland hormone (IAG) is the master regulator of sexual differentiation and testis development in male crustaceans. However, the molecular mechanism on how IAG functions during testis development is still largely unknown. Here, the transcriptional changes were analyzed in the testes of shrimp after knockdown in . Differential expression analysis identified 111 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), including 48 upregulated DEGs and 63 downregulated DEGs, in testes of shrimp after knockdown. Gene ontology (GO) analysis showed that these DEGs were apparently enriched in cytoskeleton-related GO items. Gene function analysis showed that genes enriched in these GO items mainly encoded actin, myosin, and heat shock protein. Interestingly, these genes were all downregulated in testis after knockdown, which was confirmed by qRT-PCR detection. Furthermore, injection of LvIAG protein that was recombinantly expressed in insect cells upregulated the expression levels of these genes. The present study revealed that shrimp IAG might function in testis development through regulating the expression of cytoskeletal protein-encoding genes, which would provide new insights into understanding the functional mechanisms of IAG on male sexual development of crustaceans.
胰岛素样雄激素腺激素（IAG）是雄性甲壳类动物性分化和睾丸发育的主要调节因子。然而，IAG 在睾丸发育过程中如何发挥作用的分子机制在很大程度上仍不清楚。本研究分析了敲低 后虾类睾丸中的转录变化。差异表达分析鉴定了 111 个差异表达基因（DEGs），包括 48 个上调 DEGs 和 63 个下调 DEGs，在敲低 后虾类睾丸中。基因本体（GO）分析表明，这些 DEGs 明显富集在与细胞骨架相关的 GO 项目中。基因功能分析表明，这些 GO 项目中富集的基因主要编码肌动蛋白、肌球蛋白和热休克蛋白。有趣的是，这些基因在敲低 后均在睾丸中下调，qRT-PCR 检测结果证实了这一点。此外，注射昆虫细胞中重组表达的 LvIAG 蛋白上调了这些基因的表达水平。本研究表明，虾类 IAG 可能通过调节细胞骨架蛋白编码基因的表达来发挥作用在甲壳类动物雄性性发育中的功能机制提供了新的见解。
