Endometrial gene expression in high- and low-fertility heifers in the late luteal phase of the estrous cycle and a comparison with midluteal gene expression

Abstract

Embryonic mortality is a major constraint to improving reproductive efficiency and profitability in livestock enterprises. We previously reported differential expression of genes with identified roles in cellular growth and proliferation, lipid metabolism, endometrial remodeling, inflammation, angiogenesis, and metabolic exchange in endometrial tissue on day 7 of the estrous cycle (D7), between heifers ranked as either high (HF) or low (LF) for fertility. The aim of the current study was to further elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms contributing to early embryo loss by examining differential endometrial gene expression in HF or LF heifers at a later stage of the estrous cycle;day 14(D14). A second objective was to compare these expression profiles with those from midluteal HF and LF endometrium. Using the same animal model as employed in the previous study, we slaughtered HF and LF animals on D14, harvested endometrial tissue, and carried out global gene expression analysis using the Affymetrix Bovine GeneChip. Microarray analysis detected 430 differentially expressed genes (DEG) between HF and LF animals. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis revealed enrichment for a host of biological pathways including lipid metabolism, molecular transport, immune response, cell morphology and development, and cell growth and proliferation. Important DEG includedALB, BMPR2, CCL28, COL4A3/4, FADS1, ITGA6, LDLR, PLCB3, PPARG, PTGS2, and SLC27A4 Furthermore, DEG expressed on both D7 and D14 included:PCCB,SLC25A24,DAP, and COL4A4 This study highlights some of the pathways and mechanisms underpinning late luteal bovine endometrial physiology and endometrial-related conception rate variance.

Impact of negative energy balance on transcriptomic profiles of three endometrial cell types isolated by laser capture microdissection in postpartum dairy cows

“…The over-expression of SLC27A6, a fatty acid binding protein (FABP)[78] and PLIN4, which controls intra-cellular lipid droplet-associated proteins, are consistent with earlier findings in obese mice and human[79,80]. Our data showing associations between overexpression of these genes with increased plasma NEFA concentrations are consistent with the overexpression of genes of the PLIN family found in the endometrium of low fertility heifers[73]. Taken together, this information suggests that up-regulation of genes involved in lipid uptake in ST of SNEB cows, associated with elevated NEFA concentration during the peri-parturient period may not be favourable to fertility in postpartum cows.…”

“…E-cadherin (CDH1) has been documented as a critical gene for embryo implantation as its under-expression in epithelial cells allows endometrial cells dissociation following blastocyst invasion[72]. Moreover, an increased expression of type IV collagens has been identified in endometrium of low fertility heifers[73], however, the opposite trend was found here in SNEB cows. In ST from the SNEB group, genes belonging to the Wnt pathway (P00057) were either over expressed (ACTG2, FZD5, PLCB4, CDH3, PRKCZ, CDH1, ACTA1, CTBP2, ITPR2, FRZB, ANKRD6 and ACTA2) or under expressed (CDH11, TLE4, LEF1, NFATC1, PRKCH, SMARCD2 and FBXW7).…”

Uterine Insulin Sensitivity Defects Induced Embryo Implantation Loss Associated with Mitochondrial Dysfunction‐Triggered Oxidative Stress

“…What is more, high and low fertility endometria display discrepancies in the lipid metabolism during middle and late luteal phases, indicating that lipid metabolism is involved in the luteal phase endometrial functionality [11,12]. Our group has proved that maternal short-and medium-chain fatty acid supply during early pregnancy enhances uterine phospholipid metabolism, leading to improved embryo survival [48].…”

“…Embryos only successfully implant in the endometrium during a short period in the midsecretory stage. Many researches have studied the secretory endometrium [10][11][12][13][14], but only a few are known about the proliferative endometrium. The endometrium during the proliferative phase mainly undergoes cellular proliferation and extracellular matrix remodeling, which is fundamentally important for subsequent embryo implantation during the secretory phase [15,16].…”

Reproducible Computational Workflows with Continuous Analysis

“…We analyzed the fifteen most recently published papers that cite Dai et al, a common source for custom chip description files (CustomCDF), that were accessible at our institution [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] . We identified these manuscripts using Web of Science on May 31,2016.…”