The Chinese soft-shelled (Pelodiscus sinensis) turtle exhibits obvious sex dimorphism, which leads to the higher economic and nutritional value of male individuals. Exogenous hormones can cause the transformation from male to female phenotype during gonadal differentiation. However, the molecular mechanism related to the sexual reversal process is unclear. In this study, we compared the difference between the small RNAs of male, female, and pseudo-female turtles by small RNA-seq to understand the sexual reversal process of Chinese soft-shelled turtles. A certain dose of estrogen can cause the transformation of Chinese soft-shelled turtles from male to female, which are called pseudo-female individuals. The result of small RNA-seq has revealed that the characteristics of pseudo-females are very similar to females, but are strikingly different from males. The number of the microRNAs (miRNAs) of male individuals was significantly less than the number of female individuals or pseudo-female individuals, while the expression level of miRNAs of male individuals were significantly higher than the other two types. Furthermore, we found 533 differentially expressed miRNAs, including 173 up-regulated miRNAs and 360 down-regulated miRNAs, in the process of transformation from male to female phenotype. Cluster analysis of the total 602 differential miRNAs among females, males, and pseudo-females showed that miRNAs played a crucial role during the sexual differentiation. Among these differential miRNAs, we found 12 miRNAs related to gonadal development and verified their expression by qPCR. The TR-qPCR results confirmed the differential expression of 6 of the 12 miRNAs: miR-26a-5p, miR-212-5p, miR-202-5p, miR-301a, miR-181b-3p and miR-96-5p were involved in sexual reversal process, which was consistent with the results of omics. Using these six miRNAs and some of their target genes, we constructed a network diagram related to gonadal development. We suggest that these miRNAs may play an important role in the process of effective sex reversal, which would contribute to the breeding of all male strains of Chinese soft-shelled turtles.
Keywords: Chinese soft-shelled turtle; Pelodiscus sinensis; microRNA; sex reversal; small RNA.