Effects of activin A on the transcriptome of mouse oogenesis in vitro

  • J Cell Physiol. 2019 Aug;234(8):14339-14350. doi: 10.1002/jcp.28135.
Jun-Jie Wang  1 ,  Qiu-Yue Zhai  1 ,  Rui-Qian Zhang  1 ,  Wei Ge  1 ,  Jing-Cai Liu  1 ,  Lan Li  1 ,  Zhong-Yi Sun  2 ,  Massimo De Felici  3 ,  Wei Shen  1
Affiliations
  • 1. College of Life Sciences, Institute of Reproductive Sciences, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, China.
  • 2. Center for Reproductive Medicine, Urology Department, Peking University Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen, China.
  • 3. Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy.
PMID: 30633354 DOI: 10.1002/jcp.28135
Abstract

From the previous research, it has been supported that Activin A (ActA) is conducive to ovarian development in vitro. In the present paper, with the aim to identify the molecular pathways through which ActA can influence processes of the fetal and early postnatal oogenesis, we analyzed the transcriptome of embryonic ovaries (12.5 days postcoitum) in vitro cultured with or without ActA for 6 days, as well as the produced oocytes for 28 days, and further compared the gene expression profile with their in vivo counterparts. With the confirmation of designed test, we found that the addition of ActA to the ovary culture tended, generally, to align oocyte gene expression to the in vivo condition, in particular of a number of genes involved in meiosis and epigenetic modifications of histones. In particular, we identified DNA recombination during the oocyte meiotic prophase I and lysine trimethylation of the histone H3K27 during the oocyte growth phase as molecular pathways modulated by ActA.

Keywords
activin A; histone modification; meiosis; oogenesis; transcriptome.
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