Differences in small noncoding RNAs profile between bull X and Y sperm

Hao Zhou; Jiajia Liu; Wei Sun; Rui Ding; Xihe Li; Aishao Shangguan; Yang Zhou; Tesfaye Worku; Xingjie Hao; Faheem Ahmed Khan; Liguo Yang; Shujun Zhang

doi:10.7717/peerj.9822

Differences in small noncoding RNAs profile between bull X and Y sperm

PeerJ. 2020 Sep 18:8:e9822. doi: 10.7717/peerj.9822. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Hao Zhou^#^{1

2}, Jiajia Liu^#³, Wei Sun², Rui Ding², Xihe Li², Aishao Shangguan¹, Yang Zhou¹, Tesfaye Worku¹, Xingjie Hao¹, Faheem Ahmed Khan⁴, Liguo Yang¹, Shujun Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Agricultural Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Education Ministry of China, College of Animal Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.
² Inner Mongolia Saikexing Institute of Breeding and Reproductive Biotechnology in Domestic Animal, Hohhot, China.
³ School of Biological Science and Technology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China.
⁴ Department of Zoology, University of Central Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

The differences in small noncoding RNAs (sncRNAs), including miRNAs, piRNAs, and tRNA-derived fragments (tsRNAs), between X and Y sperm of mammals remain unclear. Here, we employed high-throughput sequencing to systematically compare the sncRNA profiles of X and Y sperm from bulls (n = 3), which may have a wider implication for the whole mammalian class. For the comparison of miRNA profiles, we found that the abundance of bta-miR-652 and bta-miR-378 were significantly higher in X sperm, while nine miRNAs, including bta-miR-204 and bta-miR-3432a, had greater abundance in Y sperm (p < 0.05). qPCR was then used to further validate their abundances. Subsequent functional analysis revealed that their targeted genes in sperm were significantly involved in nucleosome binding and nucleosomal DNA binding. In contrast, their targeted genes in mature oocyte were significantly enriched in 11 catabolic processes, indicating that these differentially abundant miRNAs may trigger a series of catabolic processes for the catabolization of different X and Y sperm components during fertilization. Furthermore, we found that X and Y sperm showed differences in piRNA clusters distributed in the genome as well as piRNA and tsRNA abundance, two tsRNAs (tRNA-Ser-AGA and tRNA-Ser-TGA) had lower abundance in X sperm than Y sperm (p < 0.05). Overall, our work describes the different sncRNA profiles of X and Y sperm in cattle and enhances our understanding of their potential roles in the regulation of sex differences in sperm and early embryonic development.

Keywords: Sperm sncRNA; X sperm; Y sperm; miRNA; piRNA; tsRNA.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by a Key Project of Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2017YFD0501903) and the China Scholarship Council (201706760064). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.