1
|
Xie W, Chen M, Shen Y, Liu Y, Zhang H, Weng Q. Vomeronasal Receptors Associated with Circulating Estrogen Processing Chemosensory Cues in Semi-Aquatic Mammals. Int J Mol Sci 2023; 24:10724. [PMID: 37445898 DOI: 10.3390/ijms241310724] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2023] [Revised: 06/20/2023] [Accepted: 06/22/2023] [Indexed: 07/15/2023] Open
Abstract
In numerous animals, one essential chemosensory organ that detects chemical signals is the vomeronasal organ (VNO), which is involved in species-specific behaviors, including social and sexual behaviors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the mechanism underlying the processing of chemosensory cues in semi-aquatic mammals using muskrats as the animal model. Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) has a sensitive VNO system that activates seasonal breeding behaviors through receiving specific substances, including pheromones and hormones. Vomeronasal organ receptor type 1 (V1R) and type 2 (V2R) and estrogen receptor α and β (ERα and ERβ) were found in sensory epithelial cells, non-sensory epithelial cells and lamina propria cells of the female muskrats' VNO. V2R and ERα mRNA levels in the VNO during the breeding period declined sharply, in comparison to those during the non-breeding period, while V1R and ERβ mRNA levels were detected reversely. Additionally, transcriptomic study in the VNO identified that differently expressed genes might be related to estrogen signal and metabolic pathways. These findings suggested that the seasonal structural and functional changes in the VNO of female muskrats with different reproductive status and estrogen was regulated through binding to ERα and ERβ in the female muskrats' VNO.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Wenqian Xie
- Laboratory of Animal Physiology, College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
| | - Meiqi Chen
- Laboratory of Animal Physiology, College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
| | - Yuyao Shen
- Laboratory of Animal Physiology, College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
| | - Yuning Liu
- Laboratory of Animal Physiology, College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
| | - Haolin Zhang
- Laboratory of Animal Physiology, College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
| | - Qiang Weng
- Laboratory of Animal Physiology, College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Villamayor PR, Gullón J, Quintela L, Sánchez-Quinteiro P, Martínez P, Robledo D. Sex separation unveils the functional plasticity of the vomeronasal organ in rabbits. Front Mol Neurosci 2022; 15:1034254. [PMID: 36340690 PMCID: PMC9634631 DOI: 10.3389/fnmol.2022.1034254] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2022] [Accepted: 10/03/2022] [Indexed: 02/10/2024] Open
Abstract
Chemosensory cues are vital for social and sexual behaviours and are primarily detected and processed by the vomeronasal system (VNS), whose plastic capacity has been investigated in mice. However, studying chemosensory plasticity outside of laboratory conditions may give a more realistic picture of how the VNS adapts to a changing environment. Rabbits are a well-described model of chemocommunication since the discovery of the rabbit mammary pheromone and their vomeronasal organ (VNO) transcriptome was recently characterised, a first step to further study plasticity-mediated transcriptional changes. In this study, we assessed the plastic capacity of the rabbit male and female VNO under sex-separation vs. sex-combined scenarios, including adults and juveniles, to determine whether the rabbit VNO is plastic and, if so, whether such plasticity is already established at early stages of life. First, we characterised the number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between the VNO of rabbit male and female under sex-separation and compared it to sex-combined individuals, both in adults and juveniles, finding that differences between male and female were larger in a sex-separated scenario. Secondly, we analysed the number of DEGs between sex-separated and sex-combined scenarios, both in males and females. In adults, both sexes showed a high number of DEGs while in juveniles only females showed differences. Additionally, the vomeronasal receptor genes were strikingly downregulated in sex-separated adult females, whereas in juveniles upregulation was shown for the same condition, suggesting a role of VRs in puberty onset. Finally, we described the environment-modulated plastic capacity of genes involved in reproduction, immunity and VNO functional activity, including G-protein coupled receptors. Our results show that sex-separation induces sex- and stage-specific gene expression differences in the VNO of male and female rabbit, both in adults and juveniles. These results bring out for the first time the plastic capacity of the rabbit VNO, supporting its functional adaptation to specifically respond to a continuous changing environment. Finally, species-specific differences and individual variability should always be considered in VNO studies and overall chemocommunication research.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Paula R. Villamayor
- Departamento de Zooloxía, Xenética e Antropoloxía Física, Facultade de Veterinaria, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, Spain
- Departamento de Anatomía, Producción Animal e Ciencias Clínicas Veterinarias, Facultade de Veterinaria, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, Spain
| | | | - Luis Quintela
- Departamento de Patoloxía Animal, Facultade de Veterinaria Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, Spain
| | - Pablo Sánchez-Quinteiro
- Departamento de Anatomía, Producción Animal e Ciencias Clínicas Veterinarias, Facultade de Veterinaria, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, Spain
| | - Paulino Martínez
- Departamento de Zooloxía, Xenética e Antropoloxía Física, Facultade de Veterinaria, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, Spain
| | - Diego Robledo
- The Roslin Institute, The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Kondoh D, Kawai YK, Watanabe K, Muranishi Y. Artiodactyl livestock species have a uniform vomeronasal system with a vomeronasal type 1 receptor (V1R) pathway. Tissue Cell 2022; 77:101863. [DOI: 10.1016/j.tice.2022.101863] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/10/2022] [Revised: 06/07/2022] [Accepted: 06/28/2022] [Indexed: 10/17/2022]
|
4
|
Lv M, Chen X, Huang X, Liu N, Wang W, Liu H. Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Sexual Disparities between Olfactory and Immune Gene Expression in the Olfactory Epithelium of Megalobrama amblycephala. Int J Mol Sci 2021; 22:13017. [PMID: 34884822 PMCID: PMC8658043 DOI: 10.3390/ijms222313017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2021] [Revised: 11/25/2021] [Accepted: 11/26/2021] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
The olfactory organ is an important chemoreceptor in vertebrates. However, the sexual disparities in gene expression patterns in the olfactory organ in fish remain unstudied. Here, we conducted a transcriptome analysis of the olfactory epithelium (OE) of male and female blunt snout bream (Megalobrama amblycephala) to identify the differences. The histological analysis showed that there were 22 leaf-like olfactory lamellaes on one side of the OE of the adult blunt snout bream. The sensory area of OE is enriched with ciliated receptor cells and microvilli receptor cells. The transcriptome analysis showed that only 10 out of 336 olfactory receptor genes (224 ORs, 5 V1Rs, 55 V2Rs, and 52 TAARs) exhibited significant expression differences between males and females, and most of the differentially expressed genes were related to the immune system. We also validated these results using qPCR: 10 OR genes and 6 immunity-related genes significantly differed between males and females. The FISH analysis results indicated that the ORs were mainly expressed at the edge of the olfactory lamellae. Collectively, our study reveals that gender is not an important factor influencing the expression of olfactory receptors, but the expression of immune genes varies greatly between the genders in blunt snout bream.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Maolin Lv
- Key Lab of Agricultural Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Ministry of Education/Key Lab of Freshwater Animal Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, College of Fisheries, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China; (M.L.); (X.H.); (N.L.); (W.W.)
- Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, Engineering Research Center of Green Development for Conventional Aquatic Biological Industry in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, Ministry of Education, Wuhan 430070, China
| | - Xiuli Chen
- Guangxi Key Laboratory of Aquatic Genetic Breeding and Healthy Aquaculture, Guangxi Academy of Fishery Sciences, Nanning 530021, China;
| | - Xin Huang
- Key Lab of Agricultural Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Ministry of Education/Key Lab of Freshwater Animal Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, College of Fisheries, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China; (M.L.); (X.H.); (N.L.); (W.W.)
| | - Ning Liu
- Key Lab of Agricultural Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Ministry of Education/Key Lab of Freshwater Animal Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, College of Fisheries, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China; (M.L.); (X.H.); (N.L.); (W.W.)
- Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, Engineering Research Center of Green Development for Conventional Aquatic Biological Industry in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, Ministry of Education, Wuhan 430070, China
| | - Weimin Wang
- Key Lab of Agricultural Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Ministry of Education/Key Lab of Freshwater Animal Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, College of Fisheries, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China; (M.L.); (X.H.); (N.L.); (W.W.)
| | - Han Liu
- Key Lab of Agricultural Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Ministry of Education/Key Lab of Freshwater Animal Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, College of Fisheries, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China; (M.L.); (X.H.); (N.L.); (W.W.)
- Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, Engineering Research Center of Green Development for Conventional Aquatic Biological Industry in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, Ministry of Education, Wuhan 430070, China
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Torres MV, Ortiz-Leal I, Villamayor PR, Ferreiro A, Rois JL, Sanchez-Quinteiro P. Does a third intermediate model for the vomeronasal processing of information exist? Insights from the macropodid neuroanatomy. Brain Struct Funct 2021. [PMID: 34800143 DOI: 10.1007/s00429-021-02425-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2021] [Accepted: 11/07/2021] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
The study of the α-subunit of Gi2 and Go proteins in the accessory olfactory bulb (AOB) was crucial for the identification of the two main families of vomeronasal receptors, V1R and V2R. Both families are expressed in the rodent and lagomorph AOBs, according to a segregated model characterized by topographical anteroposterior zonation. Many mammal species have suffered from the deterioration of the Gαo pathway and are categorized as belonging to the uniform model. This scenario has been complicated by characterization of the AOB in the tammar wallaby, Notamacropus eugenii, which appears to follow a third model of vomeronasal organization featuring exclusive Gαo protein expression, referred to as the intermediate model, which has not yet been replicated in any other species. Our morphofunctional study of the vomeronasal system (VNS) in Bennett’s wallaby, Notamacropus rufogriseus, provides further information regarding this third model of vomeronasal transduction. A comprehensive histological, lectin, and immunohistochemical study of the Bennett’s wallaby VNS was performed. Anti-Gαo and anti-Gαi2 antibodies were particularly useful because they labeled the transduction cascade of V2R and V1R receptors, respectively. Both G proteins showed canonical immunohistochemical labeling in the vomeronasal organ and the AOB, consistent with the anterior–posterior zonation of the segregated model. The lectin Ulex europaeus agglutinin selectively labeled the anterior AOB, providing additional evidence for the segregation of vomeronasal information in the wallaby. Overall, the VNS of the Bennett’s wallaby shows a degree of differentiation and histochemical and neurochemical diversity comparable to species with greater VNS development. The existence of the third intermediate type in vomeronasal information processing reported in Notamacropus eugenii is not supported by our lectin-histochemical and immunohistochemical findings in Notamacropus rufogriseus.
Collapse
|