title: Comparative profiling of genes and miRNAs expressed in the newborn, young adult, and aged human epididymides.
abstract: To understand roles of transcriptional factors and miRNAs in regulating gene expression in the epididymis from postnatal development through aging, systematic profiling of genes and miRNAs expressed in the newborn, young adult, and aged human epididymides was performed by cDNA array and miRNA array analysis, respectively. The newborn human epididymis expressed the fewest mRNAs but the largest number of miRNAs, whereas the adult and aged epididymides expressed the most mRNAs but the fewest miRNAs, a negative correlation between mRNAs and miRNA during aging. By integrative analysis, a set of miRNA targets were predicted based on the miRNA and cDNA arrays. In the newborn epididymis, 127 miRNAs were exclusively or preferentially expressed but only 3 and 2 miRNAs showed an age-enriched expression pattern in the adult and aged epididymides, respectively. This study provides a basic database as well as new insights and foundations for further studies on the complex regulation of gene expression in the epididymis.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.
authors.forename: Jinsong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jianyuan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Zhongyi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Yixue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Chunsheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Susan H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.forename: Yonglian
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D004822:Epididymis / Q000378:metabolism*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000378:metabolism*; D020543:Proteome / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D035683:MicroRNAs; D020543:Proteome