Global transcriptomic response of bovine endometrium to blastocyst-stage embryos

Abstract

The aims of this study were (i) to investigate changes in the global transcriptome of bovine endometrial explants induced by exposure to blastocysts, (ii) to investigate if male and female blastocysts elicit a differential response in the endometrial transcriptome in vitro and (iii) to determine whether bovine endometrium responds to the presence of murine embryos. In Experiment 1, endometrial explants from the same uterus were cultured for 6 h with or without 20 in vitro-produced bovine blastocysts. In Experiment 2, endometrial explants were cultured with male or female bovine blastocysts produced in vitro by IVF either using sex-sorted semen or conventional unsorted semen followed by embryo sexing based on a biopsy. In Experiment 3, endometrial explants were cultured alone or in the presence of bovine blastocysts (n = 25) or murine blastocysts (n = 25). Following culture, explants were snap frozen and stored at −80°C until RNA extraction, qPCR or RNA-Seq. Culture with bovine blastocysts increased endometrial expression of 40 transcripts, all of which were interferon-tau induced. Culture with male or female bovine blastocysts increased transcript abundance of five classic interferon-stimulated genes (MX1, MX2, ISG15, OASY1, RSAD2) in explants; however, there was no difference in abundance of transcripts previously reported to be related to embryonic sex (IFNAR1, IFNAR2, CTGF, ARTN, SLC2A1, SLC2A5). Exposure to murine blastocysts did not elicit any detectable change in transcript abundance. These findings, coupled with our previous data, indicate that very local, interferon-tau-induced changes in endometrial gene expression occur in response to blastocysts; whether such changes play any role in subsequent pregnancy recognition remains to be established.

Aspects of embryo-maternal communication in establishment of pregnancy in cattle

“…To extend these findings, Passaro et al (2019) used RNA sequencing to investigate global changes in the transcriptome of endometrial explants induced by exposure to blastocysts. Exposure of bovine endometrium to blastocyst-stage embryos resulted in the upregulation of 40 transcripts in blastocyst-exposed endometrial explants compared to the control.…”

Effect of Exposure to Seminal Plasma Through Natural Mating in Cattle on Conceptus Length and Gene Expression

“…Despite the molecular complexity underlying the critical processes that take place in the periconception and early preimplantation period, the success of in vitro reproductive techniques suggests that the requirements of the embryo can be met by a relative simple set of media, and that embryonic development, at least to the blastocyst stage, occurs independently of interaction with the female reproductive tract. While blastocyst stage embryos can induce changes in the endometrium (Sponchiado et al, 2017;Passaro et al, 2018Passaro et al, , 2019 as well as the uterine lumen metabolite composition (Sponchiado et al, 2019), mainly through embryo-derived interferon-tau (Passaro et al, 2019), whether this interaction plays an important role in embryo survival is questionable given the fact that embryos can be transferred to a virgin uterus as late as Day 16 and still establish a pregnancy (Betteridge et al, 1980). Nonetheless, it is becoming apparent that offspring health can be affected by the environmental conditions experienced during gamete maturation, embryo development and fetal growth (Hanson and Gluckman, 2014).…”

Uterine Gpr83 mRNA is highly expressed during early pregnancy and GPR83 mediates the actions of PEN in endometrial and non-endometrial cells

“…For some genes, uterine expression is modulated by the preimplantation embryo (43)(44)(45). In the studies described thus far, Gpr83 mRNA expression was assessed in the pregnant mouse.…”