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RESEARCH |
INRA, UMR 444, Génétique Cellulaire, F-31326 Castanet-Tolosan Cedex, France1 INRA, UR, Station d'Amélioration Génétique des Animaux, F-31326 Castanet-Tolosan Cedex, France2 INRA, UMR6175, Physiologie de la Reproduction et des Comportements, CNRS, Université de Tours, Haras Nationaux, F-37380 Nouzilly, France3 Université Paul Sabatier, UMR 5219, Institut de Mathématiques, F-31062 Toulouse Cedex 9, France4 INRA, UMR INRA/AgroCampus Rennes: Systèmes d'Elevage, Nutrition Animale et Humaine, F-35590 Saint Gilles, France
Correspondence should be addressed to A Bonnet; Email: agnes.bonnet{at}toulouse.inra.fr
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Abstract |
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 Top Abstract IntroductionResultsDiscussionMaterials and MethodsDeclaration of interestAcknowledgementsReferences |
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Introduction |
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TopAbstractIntroductionResultsDiscussionMaterials and MethodsDeclaration of interestAcknowledgementsReferences |
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In pigs, in vitro experiments or in situ hybridization have allowed the individual description of gene expression in granulosa cells during the growth of antral follicles. They referred mainly to the role of FSH, the IGF system and growth factors on gene expression regulation, and the expression of genes involved in steroidogenesis such as CYP19A (Chan & Tan 1987) and STAR (Balasubramanian et al. 1997). Despite continuing progress in the area of ovarian biology, many of the specific mechanisms involved in follicular development, including the initiation of primordial follicle growth, antrum formation, follicular growth/selection and follicular atresia, remain to be elucidated in greater detail. Then, global approaches have been undertaken to identify new genes involved in antral follicle maturation. Our previous data obtained on porcine granulosa cells in vitro by suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) or differential display PCR suggested a role of FSH in extracellular matrix synthesis, chromatin remodelling, regulation of transcription activity and protection against atresia (Clouscard-Martinato et al. 1998, Bonnet et al. 2006b). Moreover, different cDNA libraries obtained from whole follicles of different size classes were generated to create a catalogue of differentially expressed genes along antral follicle development using sequence frequency in each library (Jiang et al. 2004). However, despite the development of DNA micro-array techniques in the pig (Tuggle et al. 2007), only few transcriptomic data are available concerning the ovarian function.
Thus, using the pig as a model and a transcriptomic approach, the aim of this study was to identify differentially expressed genes along terminal ovarian follicular development, before the onset of preovulatory LH surge. The experiment has focused especially on the time of expression of functional LH receptors in granulosa cells that occur in 4–5 mm follicle size and classically considered as a maturation marker in follicle development (May & Schomberg 1984). Then, we developed first a micro-array using cDNAs from SSH libraries obtained from granulosa cells isolated from three follicle size classes, small (1–2 mm), medium (3–4 mm) and large antral (
5 mm). In a second step, a transcriptomic analysis using cDNA probes from these three follicle classes identified transcripts differentially expressed along the terminal follicular growth and some of the gene networks associated with this process.
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All sequences were deposited in EMBL public database (accession numbers: CR939025 [GenBank] –CR940296 [GenBank] ; CT971504 [GenBank] –CT971571 [GenBank] ; CT990474 [GenBank] –CT990531 [GenBank] ) and submitted to an assembly process (Sigenae contig assembly; Pig V3 p.sc.3, 30/01/2006). Our 1378 sequences were part of 345 contigs, 63 of which were new sequences. The contig analysis revealed a global redundancy of 75%. This redundancy was explained by the high proportion of sequences coming from only three genes, CYP19A, GSTA and PGFS1 representing 15, 13.5 and 10% of the sequences respectively. There was no contig overlap between the forward and reverse libraries for SF versus LF comparison and around 10–18% for SF versus MF comparison.
The PCR products of the 1697 clones (345 genes/contigs) resulting from SSH experiments were spotted onto nylon membrane along with 1056 already sequenced PCR products (954 genes/contigs) to generate our micro-array platform (GEO accession number GPL3978 [NCBI GEO] ).
Micro-array analysis
In order to identify genes whose expression differs along the terminal growth and maturation of porcine ovarian follicles, 14 complex cDNA radiolabelled probes synthesized from the three different size class follicles were hybridized onto our specific cDNA micro-array (1275 genes/contigs). Data (GEO accession number GSE5798
[NCBI GEO]
dataset) were pre-processed resulting in a list of 1564 expressed cDNAs, corresponding to 515 different genes or contigs of sequences assembled by SIGENAE.
A mixed linear model was applied to the 1564 cDNAs to quantify the hybridization signal intensity measured for each clone and for each complex probe in the function of follicle size class. The mean expression level for all genes was not statistically different between the follicle classes (P=0.17). By contrast, some genes had a significantly different expression level than others (P<0.001) and the significance of the gene–follicle class interaction (P<0.001) indicated some gene differential expression according to the follicle size classes. The biological variation represented 12% of the total variation while the variation between complex probe replicates and experimental variation corresponded respectively to 2 and 3% of the global variation.
The selection of significant differentially expressed genes was made through a F-test followed by a false discovery rate (FDR) adjustment on the P values (F analysis). The P values obtained after the FDR adjustment were very similar to the raw P values of the F-test, indicating a very low proportion of false positive (643 adjusted P value with FDR versus 705 raw F-statistics P values <0.002.). At the 0.2% level of significance, F analysis selected 643 cDNAs corresponding to 75 known genes and 4 unknown contigs (Tables 1 and 2). The unsupervised hierarchical clustering shows that these 643 cDNAs separated the three follicle size classes in only two groups: LF versus MF and SF (Fig. 1). Among the 79 genes/contigs, 25 were overexpressed and 54 were down-expressed in LF group compared with SF/MF. However, when the expression of each selected gene was studied individually, five different expression profiles were observed (Tables 1 and 2), illustrated by the expression of glutathione S-transferase-
(GSTA1), CYP19A, TUBA1B, EEF1A and stathmin 1 (STMN1) (Fig. 2). Interestingly, numerous genes whose expression increased during the terminal follicular growth were implicated in glutathione metabolism (GSTA1, GSTA2 and MGST1) and lipid metabolism (CYP19A, AKR1C3, AKR1C4, HADHB, BDH2, CYB5, NR5A2 and RTF1). By contrast, the terminal follicular growth was notably accompanied with decreased expression of genes implicated in protein translation (16 subunits of ribosomal proteins, EEF1A), ion binding (calumenin (CALU), SLC40A1, calmodulin (CALM1) and S100A11) and cell shape (TUBA1B, TUB5B, TUB7, VIM, CAPNS1, COF1, smoothelin (SMTN), STMN1, RPSA and DAG1).
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1 mm in diameter) and not detectable in granulosa cells (Fig. 4A). By contrast, in large follicles (>5 mm), GSTA mRNA was strongly detected in granulosa cells (Fig. 4C).
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Discussion |
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TopAbstractIntroductionResultsDiscussionMaterials and MethodsDeclaration of interestAcknowledgementsReferences |
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In order to create a specific porcine micro-array, we applied SSH strategy to obtain enriched cDNA libraries with genes overexpressed in SF compared with LF and MF, or in MF and LF compared with SF. Despite the already described redundancy (Bonnet et al. 2006a), the sequence data showed a good enrichment with few overlaps between the forward and reverse libraries. For example, there is no overlap between SF/lf and LF/sf libraries, and only 11 genes/contigs (over 170) between SF/mf and MF/sf libraries. Thus, these libraries allowed the design of a valuable micro-array dedicated to the terminal follicular growth in pig species.
After micro-array hybridization and data acquisition, the statistical analyses were performed to (1) identify differentially expressed transcripts using F analysis and (2) select a set of genes that can discriminate the three follicle classes using gene prediction (RFs).
When comparing the P values with F analysis and T statistics, we observed a very low proportion of false positive, probably due to the pre-selection by the SSH strategy. The set of 79 selected cDNAs by F analysis (FDR <0.2%) mostly favoured a hierarchical classification in two clusters, sorting out the LF from the MF and SF (Fig. 1). This observation evidences that main molecular changes occur in pig granulosa cells during the medium to large follicle transition. Interestingly, this is correlated to the appearance of functional LH receptors in granulosa cells (May & Schomberg 1984).
Despite the similarity between SF and MF classes, we tried to discriminate them using an alternative statistical method. RFs were applied to select a predictive set of genes that can classify the follicles in their respective classes (Diaz-Uriarte & Alvarez de Andres 2006, Lê Cao et al. 2006). The main advantages of this method are that it can deal with a massive number of correlated input variables (and hence take into account dependencies between cDNAs) and it can also select features using an internal variable importance measure. A weighting procedure is also available to deal with unbalanced classes (biologicalxtechnical replicates). RFs selected 26 genes/contigs that could predict the three classes (LF versus MF versus SF, Fig. 3). F and RF selections shared common genes (20) but they did not answer the same biological question: F analysis selected differentially expressed transcripts between one of the three follicle classes, whereas RFs selected transcripts that can predict any of the three classes preferably all together and help classify the follicles.
In order to complete these global analyses, we combined them with the individual study of each selected gene, which revealed five expression profiles (Fig. 2). These expression profiles confirmed that the main significant differences in gene expression during terminal follicular development occurred between the medium and large follicles. Indeed, 49 out of the 79 genes/contigs showed a differential expression only in large follicles (Tables 1 and 2). In addition, 23 genes/contigs exhibited a gradual expression change from SF to LF. Finally, the expression of only 13 genes/contigs decreased during SF to MF transition.
To validate micro-array analysis, gene expression was checked using real-time PCR analysis and in situ hybridization. The real-time PCR results were globally in agreement with the micro-array data analyses (Table 3). Discrepancies concern only five genes whose P values were considered as non-significant. Among them, only MT-CO1 displays an opposite regulation between the two approaches, whereas the other four exhibited the same tendency as the one found in micro-array experiments. Non-significance may be attributed to the high variability of gene expression checked by QPCR. A higher number of tested samples would probably confirm the micro-array data for these four genes.
Using IPA, we identified major networks involved in ribosomal protein synthesis, lipid metabolism and cellular growth and proliferation (Table 4). The first network brought together the genes coding for ribosomal proteins and one translational elongation factor (EEF1A1), all down-expressed during terminal development (Fig. 5). This network was the most significant (score 26) and included 16 out of the 79 differentially expressed genes. It assumed a decrease in protein synthesis and may be associated with a decreased cellular growth rate. This is in agreement with previous studies describing a decrease in the percentage of proliferating granulosa cells during the final stages of follicular development in pigs and other species (Hirshfield 1986, Fricke et al. 1996, Pisselet et al. 2000). Our results suggest that the molecular mechanisms leading to granulosa cell proliferation arrest in LF occur as early as the SF to MF transition, as attested by the decreased expression of seven ribosomal genes in MF (Table 2). In addition, this network also suggested the role of the MYC family members known to induce ribosomal gene transcription (Boon et al. 2001) which needs further investigations in the context of differentiated granulosa cells.
Networks 2 and 5 bring out relations between genes implicated in lipid metabolism (Supplementary Figure 1). In the context of granulosa cells, lipid metabolism is closely related to steroids synthesis, produced de novo from cholesterol. We observed an overexpression of different hydroxylase genes as HADHB, cytochromes (CYP19A, CYB5) and NR5A2, a factor known to play an important role in the activation of transcription of steroidogenic enzymes like cytochromes (Sirianni et al. 2002) and emerging as an important ovarian factor in regulating female reproduction (Saxena et al. 2007, Zhao et al. 2007). These concomitant overexpressions occurring mainly in LF may favour an increase in steroid synthesis and were in agreement with an increase of oestradiol concentration in follicular fluid during terminal development (Foxcroft & Hunter 1985). This network also underlines a detoxification mechanism that is a consequence of steroid synthesis and allows the transformation of metabolism residues like the lipid hydroperoxydes. Our study highlighted the overexpression of different GST genes (GSTA1, GSTA2 and MGST) in LF granulosa cells. This has already been described in steroidogenically active cells (Keira et al. 1994, Rabahi et al. 1999). In our study, GSTA1 in situ experiments fitted in very well with the micro-array analysis for this gene. We underlined also the down-regulation of glutathione peroxidase 3 (GPX3; Table 1). The KEGG (http://www.genome.jp/kegg) glutathione pathway (data not shown) suggests two different activities for these enzymes with a specific role of detoxification for GPX3 (catalyses the reduction of peroxides as lipid hydroperoxides (LOOHs)) and an intracellular transport proteins or steroids sequestration function for GSTA. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence of GPX3 regulation in ovarian cells. Finally, the network 2 highlighted the overexpression of two members of the aldo–keto reductase superfamily (AKR1C3 and AKR1C4) able to catalyse the conversion of a wide variety of substrates such as aldehydes generated by phospholipid metabolism (Vergnes et al. 2003). Moreover, aldo–keto reductases have the ability to modulate the levels of active androgens, oestrogens and progestins (Bauman et al. 2004).
Altogether, the overexpression of the genes implicated in lipid metabolism network is in agreement with the differentiation mechanisms leading to fully steroidogenic granulosa cells in LF attested by the overexpression of CYP19A1 (micro-array), CYP11A1 and STAR genes (QPCR).
Our results notably reveal cell morphology and ion-binding gene regulation. Indeed, along terminal follicular development, we observed a down-regulation of genes coding for cytoskeletal microtubule constituents (TUB1, TUB5 and TUB7), intermediate filaments (vimentin) and a gene implicated in their assembly, STMN1. This strongly suggests a deep modification of cell architecture of granulosa cells in LF. The network constructed with genes implicated in cell shape and ion binding (Fig. 6) also led us to the hypothesis of actin network implication. We showed up-regulation in LF of cofilin 2 (CFL2) involved in actin globular-form sequestration. In contrast, we have observed a decreased expression of SMTN that is specifically associated with filamentous actin in stress fibres. In addition, we observed in granulosa cells of LF the down-expression of genes coding for calcium-binding proteins, also implicated in actin cytoskeleton organization: calgizzarin (S100A11), CALM1 and CALM2 and CALU. Altogether, the modifications of these gene regulations let us think of the cell shape changes in LF when compared with earlier stages. This is attested by our in vivo observation of actin network in granulosa cells. The observation of actin staining revealed a different organization of actin filaments between the granulosa cells of small/medium and large follicles (Fig. 7). Rounded versus elongated shape may be associated with the in vivo differences in morphological cell gene expression between granulosa cells of SF versus LF. Interestingly, in sheep, induced cell rounding was associated with enhanced oestradiol secretion and inhibited proliferation of granulosa cells (Le Bellego et al. 2005). In addition, the different studies on luteinization process reported that gonadotrophic regulation of granulosa cell steroidogenesis was associated with cell shape changes (Ben-Ze'ev & Amsterdam 1989). In response to gonadotrophins, several genes coding for microtubule system and intermediate filament have been modulated. This suggests that rearrangement of the cytoskeletal proteins permits better coupling between steroidogenesis involved organelles (Carnegie et al. 1988, Sasson et al. 2004). Our hypothesis is that one of the microtubule roles tends to facilitate the movement of cholesterol from lipid droplets to mitochondria, possibly by bringing these cellular inclusions closer together (Carnegie et al. 1987).
This demonstrates the usefulness of building networks from micro-array experiments: they may highlight new genes that were not analysed in the micro-array experiment but that are relevant to the studied biological phenomenon, even if, in our case, the literature had already pointed these remodelling processes in vitro.
Up to now, only three transcriptome analyses on pig folliculogenesis have been performed. Two of them identified genes from the whole follicle whose ovarian expression has been changed as a result of long-term genetic selection for the component of reproduction (Caetano et al. 2004, Gladney et al. 2004). The third analysis examined gene expression in the whole follicle between preovulatory oestrogenic and luteinized follicles and corresponded to the continuity of our study (Agca et al. 2006).
In conclusion, the present study identified 79 regulated genes that may contribute to a better understanding of the mechanism involved in terminal antral follicular growth. Four cDNA sequences were found without significant homologies in databases. Some genes had functions that were already known and their regulation was consistent with the published literature. Some of them have been never associated with folliculogenesis, such as STMN1, SMTN, ITM2A and GPX3. Further investigations will be necessary to analyse the spatio-temporal expression pattern of these new genes and their interplay at the RNA and protein levels in the developing ovarian follicle. They may give clues to better understanding of the folliculogenesis process. Integration of the data highlighted gene networks mainly involved in ribosomal protein synthesis; steroid metabolism and cell morphology are perfectly coherent with enhanced steroidogenesis and arrest of growth rate in granulosa cells reaching their final maturation at the end of the terminal follicle development in pig.
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Materials and Methods |
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TopAbstractIntroductionResultsDiscussionMaterials and MethodsDeclaration of interestAcknowledgementsReferences |
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Granulosa cell isolation and RNA extraction
All antral follicles from 1 mm in diameter were isolated carefully using a binocular microscope. The diameter of each follicle was measured and follicles were classified according to their size class as previously described for pig (Guthrie et al. 1993). SF (1–2 mm) and MF (3–4 mm) were recovered 24 h after the last altrenogest feeding of gilts. LF (5 mm) were recovered 96 h after the last altrenogest feeding. Granulosa cells were collected from individual follicle in MEM121/F12 (v/v) medium (Gasser et al. 1985). A small aliquot fraction was examined using Feulgen colouration to select cells only from healthy follicles (frequent mitosis, no pyknosis), as described previously (Monget et al. 1993, Besnard et al. 1996).
RNA was extracted from granulosa cells according to the technique described by Chomczynski & Sacchi (1987) with minor modifications (Hatey et al. 1995) using pools of granulosa cells from the same follicle size class. Finally, four independent RNA samples were obtained from small healthy follicles, five samples from medium healthy follicles and five samples from large healthy follicles. The quality of each RNA sample was checked through the Bioanalyser Agilent 2100 (Agilent Technologies, Massy, France).
Suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH)
Synthesis of cDNA and SSH were performed as described previously (Bonnet et al. 2006a), using SMART PCR cDNA synthesis kit and PCR-Select cDNA Subtraction kit respectively (each from Clontech). Briefly, SSH was performed using 300 ng cDNA generated from each RNA sample. After hybridization, the primary PCR amplification was achieved through 27–30 PCR cycles starting with 1 µl of a 23-fold diluted second hybridization reaction. The secondary PCR amplification was achieved through 11–12 PCR cycles starting with 1 µl of a tenfold diluted primary PCR amplification. Resulting SSH products were purified and concentrated, using Amicon Microcon-PCR filters (Millipore, St Quentin-en-Yvelines, France). cDNAs >500 bp were selected by gel filtration on 1 ml sepharose CL2B column, as described in pBluescript II XR Library Construction Kit (Stratagene Europe, Amsterdam, The Netherlands). The first 1 ml fraction was saved and ethanol precipitated with 20 µg glycogen and then diluted in 10 µl water. The selected PCR products were cloned using the pGEM-T Easy Vector (Promega) and electroporated into competent bacteria (DH10 alpha, Clontech).
Two forward SSH libraries were constructed, SF versus LF (SF/lf) and SF versus MF (SF/mf), and two reverse ones, LF versus SF (LF/sf) and MF versus SF (MF/sf). Each library contained 2500 cDNA clones and was respectively enriched with overexpressed genes in SF compared with the LF and MF, and MF and LF compared with SF.
Macro-arrays design and analysis
Bacterial clones of the four different SSH libraries (about 10 000 clones) have been spotted onto nylon filters to generate colony macro-arrays in order to sort out the false-positive clones and select differentially expressed candidate clones between the different follicle classes before sequencing.
Arrays were generated as described (Nguyen et al. 1995) and probed in duplicate, using both SMART products (from RNA of small, medium and large follicles) and the four SSH cDNA products (Sf/lf, LF/sf, SF/mf and MF/sf) labelled with -33P dCTP, as described previously (Hatey et al. 1992). After washing, the arrays were exposed 6 or 24 h to storage phosphor screens and scanned thereafter with a phosphor imaging system at a 50 µm resolution (Storm 840; GE Healthcare, Orsay, France).
Image quantification was performed using the XDotReader software and data analysis was performed using the BioPlot software (available at http://biopuce.insa-toulouse.fr). Briefly, after log transformation, the data were normalized by all spot average without background subtraction. The differential cDNA clone's expression is based on following software criterions: overexpressed threshold ratio, 1.5; under-expressed threshold ratio, 0.66 and Student's t-test (P value threshold, 0.25). A selection of differentially expressed cDNA clones was sequenced and spotted onto micro-array membranes.
Micro-arrays design and hybridization
The micro-arrays contained PCR products from 2849 pig cDNA clones coming from 1697 clones selected after SSH/macro-array experiments, 1056 clones of the AGENAE pig normalized multi-tissue cDNA library (Bonnet et al. 2008) and 96 clones used as controls. The multi-tissue library was used to allow a proper normalization of the data. PCR products were spotted in duplicate on two separate fields of the same nylon membrane (18x72 mm, Immobilon-NY+, Millipore) as described (Ferre et al. 2007). A detailed description of the resulting micro-array platform is available in the Gene Expression Omnibus database (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo).
The quality of spotting and the relative amount of DNA in each spot have been controlled, using a 33P-labelled oligonucleotide corresponding to a vector sequence present in all PCR products (Ferre et al. 2007; GEO accession number GSE5797 [NCBI GEO] dataset). After stripping, the arrays were hybridized with 33P-labelled complex probes synthesized from 5 µg of each RNA sample (4 SF, 5 MF and 5 LF), using SuperScript II RNAse H– reverse transcriptase (Invitrogen). Each complex probe has been hybridized on two individual membranes exposed 6 or 24 h to radioisotopic-sensitive imaging plates (BAS-2025; Fujifilm, Raytest, Courbevoie, France). The imaging plates were scanned thereafter with a phosphor imaging system at 25 µm resolution (BAS-5000, Fujifilm). Hybridization images obtained from oligonucleotide and complex probes were quantified using the semi-automated BZScan software (Lopez et al. 2004).
Data management
The experimental design, its implementation and the handling of data comply with MIAME standards (Brazma et al. 2001), and all the experimental data were managed using BASE software (Saal et al. 2002), adapted by SIGENAE bioinformatics platform (http://www.sigenae.org) to ensure radioactive experiments.
Data analysis
Using the oligonucleotide probe, spots with low signal values (i.e. <2x median of empty spots) were considered as mis-amplified or mis-spotted and were excluded from the analysis. The data coming from complex probe hybridizations were logarithmically transformed and centred for each membrane. Spots with low signal value (below the average of empty spots +2 SDs) were considered as unexpressed and were excluded from the analysis. Finally, the remaining data were centred for each PCR product. Thereafter, a mixed linear model was fitted on these data, using the MIXED procedure of SAS software (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA). Explanatory variables (follicle class, gene and interaction between these factors) were treated as fixed effects and animal, experimental variability (RNA, hybridization) and residual were treated as random effects.
The selection of the differentially expressed genes was performed using the R statistical software system (the Comprehensive R Archive National, http://www.cran.r-project.org). We tested the significance of the follicle classes on the gene expression using F-test followed by the Benjamini–Hochberg procedure controlling FDR for each cDNA (Benjamini & Hochberg 1995). Of note, F-test selects genes whose intra-class variance is differentially expressed in at least one of the classes. Thereafter, the expression value of each selected gene was compared between each follicle size class, using a Student's t-test (P value: 5%) to establish the expression profile along terminal follicular development.
A set of predictive genes was identified using the balanced RFs approach (Chen et al. 2004). To obtain a stable selection of genes, 1000 of the balanced RFs were launched with each of 15 000 trees and 42 variables randomly sampled as candidates at each split (default value proposed by R). The most important cDNAs that appeared the most frequently (in 90% of the forests) were selected using the Mean Decrease Gini importance measure as feature selection criterion.
Finally, the relevance of the two selections was evaluated via unsupervised hierarchical clustering using the Ward method and Euclidean distance with the R functions hclust and heatmap (Chipman et al. 2003).
Sequence annotation
Each cDNA sequence was compared with Refseq_rna mammalian database using the NCBI blastn program (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/blast/Blast.cgi). Blast results with an e value inferior to 1e–3 were parsed and filtered to keep queries matching either a gene, a mRNA or a CDS and possessing at least a global coverage of 70% of the query sequence. Resulting hits were sorted out according to their closeness to the pig genome, their coverage and sequence identity. The selected cDNA sequences were submitted to the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) gene nomenclature committee, using their RefSeq IDs (http://www.genenames.org/). Then, HUGO gene symbols were used to name the genes.
Biological network and pathway analysis
IPA software (Ingenuity Systems Inc., Redwood City, CA, USA) was used to examine molecular pathways. This software combines functional annotations of our differentially expressed genes (focus genes) and the corresponding bibliographic data to generate significant signalling pathways and regulation networks.
Quantitative PCR analysis of gene expression
Total RNA (2 µg) from the same RNA samples used in micro-array experiments was reverse transcribed as described previously (Tosser-Klopp et al. 2001). An external standard (plant mRNA: I11a accession number Y10291
[GenBank]
) was added to each RNA sample (1 pg for 2 µg total RNA sample) before RT to allow quantification of the cDNA production. Primers were designed using ‘Primer Express’ software (Applied Biosystems, Courtaboeuf, France) and the intron–exon organization of porcine genes has been deduced by comparison with human genome using Iccare software (Muller et al. 2004). Translationally controlled tumour protein gene (TCTP, accession number BX667045
[GenBank]
) and COX3 gene (cytochrome c oxidase subunit III, accession number CT971556
[GenBank]
) were found to be highly expressed but not regulated during follicle development in our micro-array experiment and used as internal controls. All primer sequences are given in Supplementary Table 1, which can be viewed online at www.reproduction-online.org/supplemental. Quantitative real-time PCR was performed using SYBR green fluorescence detection during amplification on an ABI Prism 7900 Sequence Detection System 2.1 (Applied Biosystems), according to the manufacturer's recommendations. Duplicates of each template (120 or 500 pg) were loaded in 384-well plates using a liquid handling robot (TECAN genesis rsp 200X8, Mannedorf/Zurich, Switzerland) with a 10 µl PCR mix SYBR green Power master mix (Applied Biosystems) and 0.5 µM forward and reverse primers (final volume of 13 µl). The PCR amplification conditions were as follows: 50 °C for 30 min, initial denaturation at 95 °C for 10 min and 40 cycles (95 °C for 15 s and 60 °C for 1 min). The last cycle was followed by a dissociation step (ramping to 95 °C). The real-time PCR amplification efficiency has been calculated for each primer pair with four 1:2 dilution points of the calibrator sample (pool of the 14 cDNA samples). After determination of the threshold cycle (Ct) for each sample, the PFAFFL method was applied to calculate the relative changes of each mRNA in each sample (Pfaffl 2001). The relative expression was normalized by the corresponding geometric average of an external control gene and two internal genes using geNorm v3.4 (Vandesompele et al. 2002). The significance of expression ratio was tested using F-test.
In situ hybridization and actin detection
Frozen ovaries recovered 24 or 96 h after the last altrenogest feeding were serially sectioned at a thickness of 10 µm with a cryostat. For in situ hybridization, 35S-labelled cRNA probes (sense and anti-sense) were obtained from GSTA gene (accession number X93247
[GenBank]
and X91711
[GenBank]
) by in vitro transcription of PCR products generated with the recombinant plasmid using primers containing T3 and T7 promoters at their 5'-end, as described previously (Besnard et al. 1996). For actin detection, cryosections were stained with FITC-conjugated phalloidin (Sigma–Aldrich), as previously described (Le Bellego et al. 2005), and were analysed using fluorescence microscopy.
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Declaration of interest |
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TopAbstractIntroductionResultsDiscussionMaterials and MethodsDeclaration of interestAcknowledgementsReferences |
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Funding |
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Acknowledgements |
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TopAbstractIntroductionResultsDiscussionMaterials and MethodsDeclaration of interestAcknowledgementsReferences |
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Received July 5, 2007
First decision September 6, 2007
Revised manuscript received April 8, 2008
Accepted April 28, 2008
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References |
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TopAbstractIntroductionResultsDiscussionMaterials and MethodsDeclaration of interestAcknowledgementsReferences |
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