TY - JOUR
T1 - Discovery and Characterization of piRNAs in the Human Fetal Ovary
AU - Williams, Zev
AU - Morozov, Pavel
AU - Mihailovic, Aleksandra
AU - Lin, Carolina
AU - Puvvula, Pavan Kumar
AU - Juranek, Stefan
AU - Rosenwaks, Zev
AU - Tuschl, Thomas
N1 - Funding Information:
We wish to thank members of the Tuschl lab for helpful discussions and advice. We thank Dr. Carolyn Westhoff and the faculty of the Division of Family Planning at Columbia University Medical Center for facilitating sample collection and Markus Landthaler (Berlin Institute for Medical System Biology, Max Delbrueck Center for Molecular Medicine of the Berlin Institute) for generating the PIWIL-protein-expressing HEK293 cell lines. This research was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (T.T.), National Institutes of Health grant HD068546, and the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility (Z.W.).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 The Authors.
PY - 2015/10/27
Y1 - 2015/10/27
N2 - Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), a class of 26- to 32-nt non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), function in germline development, transposon silencing, and epigenetic regulation. We performed deep sequencing and annotation of untreated and periodate-treated small RNA cDNA libraries from human fetal and adult germline and reference somatic tissues. This revealed abundant piRNAs originating from 150 piRNA-encoding genes, including some exhibiting gender-specific expression, in fetal ovary and adult testis-developmental periods coinciding with mitotic cell divisions expanding fetal germ cells prior to meiotic divisions. The absence of reads mapping uniquely to annotated piRNA genes demonstrated their paucity in fetal testis and adult ovary and absence in somatic tissues. We curated human piRNA-expressing regions and defined their precise borders and observed piRNA-guided cleavage of transcripts antisense to some piRNA-producing genes. This study provides insights into sex-specific mammalian piRNA expression and function and serves as a reference for human piRNA analysis and annotation.
AB - Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), a class of 26- to 32-nt non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), function in germline development, transposon silencing, and epigenetic regulation. We performed deep sequencing and annotation of untreated and periodate-treated small RNA cDNA libraries from human fetal and adult germline and reference somatic tissues. This revealed abundant piRNAs originating from 150 piRNA-encoding genes, including some exhibiting gender-specific expression, in fetal ovary and adult testis-developmental periods coinciding with mitotic cell divisions expanding fetal germ cells prior to meiotic divisions. The absence of reads mapping uniquely to annotated piRNA genes demonstrated their paucity in fetal testis and adult ovary and absence in somatic tissues. We curated human piRNA-expressing regions and defined their precise borders and observed piRNA-guided cleavage of transcripts antisense to some piRNA-producing genes. This study provides insights into sex-specific mammalian piRNA expression and function and serves as a reference for human piRNA analysis and annotation.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.celrep.2015.09.030
DO - 10.1016/j.celrep.2015.09.030
M3 - Article
C2 - 26489470
AN - SCOPUS:84945573267
SN - 2211-1247
VL - 13
SP - 854
EP - 863
JO - Cell Reports
JF - Cell Reports
IS - 4
ER -