Gene Expression Profiling Reveals Potential Players of Sex Determination and Asymmetrical Development in Chicken Embryo Gonads

Despite the notable progress made in recent years, the understanding of the genetic control of gonadal sex differentiation and asymmetrical ovariogenesis in chicken during embryonic development remains incomplete. This study aimed to identify potential key genes and speculate about the mechanisms as...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of molecular sciences 2023-10, Vol.24 (19), p.14597
Main Authors: Luo, Huaixi, Zhou, Hao, Jiang, Shengyao, He, Chuan, Xu, Ke, Ding, Jinmei, Liu, Jiajia, Qin, Chao, Chen, Kangchun, Zhou, Wenchuan, Wang, Liyuan, Yang, Wenhao, Zhu, Wenqi, Meng, He
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
asymmetrical development
Bias
chicken
DNA sequencing
Embryo
Embryonic development
Embryos
Estrogens
Females
Gene expression
Genes
Genetic aspects
Genomes
high-throughput sequencing
Hypotheses
Males
Morphology
Nucleotide sequencing
Ovaries
Poultry
Sex chromosomes
sex determination
Sexes
sexual differentiation
Testes
transcriptome
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Summary:Despite the notable progress made in recent years, the understanding of the genetic control of gonadal sex differentiation and asymmetrical ovariogenesis in chicken during embryonic development remains incomplete. This study aimed to identify potential key genes and speculate about the mechanisms associated with ovary and testis development via an analysis of the results of PacBio and Illumina transcriptome sequencing of embryonic chicken gonads at the initiation of sexual differentiation (E4.5, E5.5, and E6.5). PacBio sequencing detected 328 and 233 significantly up-regulated transcript isoforms in females and males at E4.5, respectively. Illumina sequencing detected 95, 296 and 445 DEGs at E4.5, E5.5, and E6.5, respectively. Moreover, both sexes showed asymmetrical expression in gonads, and more DEGs were detected on the left side. There were 12 DEGs involved in cell proliferation shared between males and females in the left gonads. GO analysis suggested that coagulation pathways may be involved in the degradation of the right gonad in females and that blood oxygen transport pathways may be involved in preventing the degradation of the right gonad in males. These results provide a comprehensive expression profile of chicken embryo gonads at the initiation of sexual differentiation, which can serve as a theoretical basis for further understanding the mechanism of bird sex determination and its evolutionary process.
ISSN:1422-0067
1661-6596
1422-0067
DOI:10.3390/ijms241914597