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Jiang Z. Molecular and cellular programs underlying the development of bovine pre-implantation embryos. Reprod Fertil Dev 2023; 36:34-42. [PMID: 38064195 PMCID: PMC10962643 DOI: 10.1071/rd23146] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Early embryonic mortality is a major cause of infertility in cattle, yet the underlying molecular causes remain a mystery. Over the past half century, assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilisation and somatic cell nuclear transfer have been used to improve cattle reproductive efficiency; however, reduced embryo developmental potential is seen compared to their in vivo counterparts. Recent years have seen exciting progress across bovine embryo research, including genomic profiling of embryogenesis, new methods for improving embryo competence, and experimenting on building bovine embryos from stem cell cultures. These advances are beginning to define bovine embryo molecular and cellular programs and could potentially lead to improved embryo health. Here, I highlight the current status of molecular determinants and cellular programs of bovine embryo development and new opportunities to improve the bovine embryo health.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zongliang Jiang
- Department of Animal Sciences, Genetics Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610, USA
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Oviduct Epithelial Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles Improve Porcine Trophoblast Outgrowth. Vet Sci 2022; 9:vetsci9110609. [DOI: 10.3390/vetsci9110609] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2022] [Revised: 10/20/2022] [Accepted: 10/29/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
Porcine species have a great impact on studies on biomaterial production, organ transplantation and the development of biomedical models. The low efficiency of in vitro-produced embryos to derive embryonic stem cells has made achieving this goal a challenge. The fallopian tube plays an important role in the development of embryos. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) secreted by oviductal epithelial cells play an important role in the epigenetic regulation of embryo development. We used artificially isolated oviductal epithelial cells and EVs. In this study, oviductal epithelial cell (OEC) EVs were isolated and characterized through transmission electron microscopy, nanoparticles tracking analysis, western blotting and proteomics. We found that embryo development and blastocyst formation rate was significantly increased (14.3% ± 0.6% vs. 6.0% ± 0.6%) after OEC EVs treatment. According to our data, the inner cell mass (ICM)/trophectoderm (TE) ratio of the embryonic cell number increased significantly after OEC EVs treatment (43.7% ± 2.3% vs. 28.4% ± 2.1%). Meanwhile, the attachment ability of embryos treated with OEV EVs was significantly improved (43.5% ± 2.1% vs. 29.2% ± 2.5%, respectively). Using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), we found that the expression of reprogramming genes (POU5F1, SOX2, NANOG, KLF4 and c-Myc) and implantation-related genes (VIM, KRT8, TEAD4 and CDX2) significantly increased in OEC EV-treated embryos. We report that OEC EV treatment can improve the development and implantation abilities of embryos.
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Zhao L, Long C, Zhao G, Su J, Ren J, Sun W, Wang Z, Zhang J, Liu M, Hao C, Li H, Cao G, Bao S, Zuo Y, Li X. Reprogramming barriers in bovine cells nuclear transfer revealed by single-cell RNA-seq analysis. J Cell Mol Med 2022; 26:4792-4804. [PMID: 35971640 PMCID: PMC9465183 DOI: 10.1111/jcmm.17505] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/11/2021] [Revised: 06/05/2022] [Accepted: 07/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Many progresses have recently been achieved in animal somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). However, embryos derived from SCNT rarely result in live births. Single‐cell RNA sequencing (scRNA‐seq) can be used to investigate the development details of SCNT embryos. Here, bovine fibroblasts and three factors bovine iPSCs (3F biPSCs) were used as donors for bovine nuclear transfer, and the single blastomere transcriptome was analysed by scRNA‐seq. Compared to in vitro fertilization (IVF) embryos, SCNT embryos exhibited many defects. Abnormally expressed genes were found at each stage of embryos, which enriched in metabolism, and epigenetic modification. The DEGs of the adjacent stage in SCNT embryos did not follow the temporal expression pattern similar to that of IVF embryos. Particularly, SCNT 8‐cell stage embryos showed failures in some gene activation, including ZSCAN4, and defects in protein association networks which cored as POLR2K, GRO1, and ANKRD1. Some important signalling pathways also showed incomplete activation at SCNT zygote to morula stage. Interestingly, 3F biPSCNT embryos exhibited more dysregulated genes than SCNT embryos at zygote and 2‐cell stage, including genes in KDM family. Pseudotime analysis of 3F biPSCNT embryos showed the different developmental fate from SCNT and IVF embryos. These findings suggested partial reprogrammed 3F biPS cells as donors for bovine nuclear transfer hindered the reprogramming of nuclear transfer embryos. Our studies revealed the abnormal gene expression and pathway activation of SCNT embryos, which could increase our understanding of the development of SCNT embryos and give hints to improve the efficiency of nuclear transfer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lixia Zhao
- The State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Regulation and Breeding of Grassland Livestock, College of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China.,Research Center for Animal Genetic Resources of Mongolia Plateau, College of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China.,Inner Mongolia Saikexing Institute of Breeding and Reproductive Biotechnology in Domestic Animal, Hohhot, China
| | - Chunshen Long
- The State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Regulation and Breeding of Grassland Livestock, College of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China
| | - Gaoping Zhao
- Inner Mongolia Saikexing Institute of Breeding and Reproductive Biotechnology in Domestic Animal, Hohhot, China
| | - Jie Su
- Inner Mongolia Saikexing Institute of Breeding and Reproductive Biotechnology in Domestic Animal, Hohhot, China.,College of Veterinary Medicine, Key Laboratory of Basic Veterinary Medicine, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China
| | - Jie Ren
- Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics, College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Wei Sun
- Inner Mongolia Saikexing Institute of Breeding and Reproductive Biotechnology in Domestic Animal, Hohhot, China
| | - Zixin Wang
- Inner Mongolia Saikexing Institute of Breeding and Reproductive Biotechnology in Domestic Animal, Hohhot, China
| | - Jia Zhang
- The State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Regulation and Breeding of Grassland Livestock, College of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China
| | - Moning Liu
- College of Veterinary Medicine, Key Laboratory of Basic Veterinary Medicine, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China
| | - Chunxia Hao
- The State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Regulation and Breeding of Grassland Livestock, College of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China
| | - Hanshuang Li
- The State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Regulation and Breeding of Grassland Livestock, College of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China
| | - Guifang Cao
- College of Veterinary Medicine, Key Laboratory of Basic Veterinary Medicine, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China
| | - Siqin Bao
- The State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Regulation and Breeding of Grassland Livestock, College of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China.,Research Center for Animal Genetic Resources of Mongolia Plateau, College of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China
| | - Yongchun Zuo
- The State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Regulation and Breeding of Grassland Livestock, College of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China
| | - Xihe Li
- The State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Regulation and Breeding of Grassland Livestock, College of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China.,Research Center for Animal Genetic Resources of Mongolia Plateau, College of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China.,Inner Mongolia Saikexing Institute of Breeding and Reproductive Biotechnology in Domestic Animal, Hohhot, China
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Real age prediction from the transcriptome with RAPToR. Nat Methods 2022; 19:969-975. [PMID: 35817937 DOI: 10.1038/s41592-022-01540-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/08/2021] [Accepted: 05/25/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Transcriptomic data is often affected by uncontrolled variation among samples that can obscure and confound the effects of interest. This variation is frequently due to unintended differences in developmental stages between samples. The transcriptome itself can be used to estimate developmental progression, but existing methods require many samples and do not estimate a specimen's real age. Here we present real-age prediction from transcriptome staging on reference (RAPToR), a computational method that precisely estimates the real age of a sample from its transcriptome, exploiting existing time-series data as reference. RAPToR works with whole animal, dissected tissue and single-cell data for the most common animal models, humans and even for non-model organisms lacking reference data. We show that RAPToR can be used to remove age as a confounding factor and allow recovery of a signal of interest in differential expression analysis. RAPToR will be especially useful in large-scale single-organism profiling because it eliminates the need for accurate staging or synchronisation before profiling.
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Qu P, Cao W, Zhang Y, Qi J, Meng B, Liu S, Zhuang Y, Duan C, Liu E. Sperm-borne proteins improve rabbit cloning efficiency via regulating embryonic cleavage and epigenetics. Proteomics 2022; 22:e2200020. [PMID: 35779011 DOI: 10.1002/pmic.202200020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2022] [Revised: 05/25/2022] [Accepted: 06/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Abstract
Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) shows great application value in the generation of transgenic animals, protection of endangered species, and therapeutic cloning. However, the cloning efficiency is still very low, which greatly restricts its application. Compared to fertilized embryos, cloned embryos lack the sperm proteins, which are considered to play an important role in embryonic development. Here we compared the sperm proteome, with that of donor fibroblasts and oocytes, and identified 342 proteins unique to sperm, with 42 being highly expressed. The 384 proteins were mainly enriched in the categories of post-translational modification and cytoskeletal arrangement. Extracts of soluble sperm or fibroblast proteins were injected into cloned embryos, and the result showed that injection of sperm protein significantly inhibited abnormal embryonic cleavage, significantly decreased the level of trimethylated histone H3Lys9 (H3K9me3) and the apoptotic index, and increased the inner cell mass (ICM)-to-trophectoderm (TE) ratio. More importantly, the sperm proteins also significantly enhanced the birthrate. The results of in vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrate that sperm-derived proteins improve embryo cloning efficiency. Our findings not only provide new insights into ways to overcome low cloning efficiency, but also add to the understanding of sperm protein function. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pengxiang Qu
- Laboratory Animal Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Centre, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.,Key Laboratory of Environment and Genes Related to Diseases, Ministry of Education of China, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
| | - Wenbin Cao
- Laboratory Animal Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Centre, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.,Key Laboratory of Environment and Genes Related to Diseases, Ministry of Education of China, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
| | - Yanru Zhang
- Laboratory Animal Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Centre, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.,Key Laboratory of Environment and Genes Related to Diseases, Ministry of Education of China, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
| | - Jia Qi
- Laboratory Animal Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Centre, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.,Key Laboratory of Environment and Genes Related to Diseases, Ministry of Education of China, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
| | - Bin Meng
- Laboratory Animal Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Centre, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.,The Assisted Reproduction Center, Northwest Women's and Children's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
| | - Shuangqing Liu
- Laboratory Animal Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Centre, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
| | - Yanxin Zhuang
- Laboratory Animal Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Centre, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
| | - Chenjin Duan
- Laboratory Animal Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Centre, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
| | - Enqi Liu
- Laboratory Animal Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Centre, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.,Key Laboratory of Environment and Genes Related to Diseases, Ministry of Education of China, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
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