title: Differential responses of female and male brains to hypoxia in the marine medaka Oryzias melastigma.
abstract: Hypoxia, an endocrine disruptor, affects synthesis and balance of sex steroid hormones, leading to reproductive impairment in both female and male fish. Cumulating reports demonstrated the alternation of hypothalamus-pituitary-gonad axis (HPG-axis) by hypoxia. However, the detail mechanism underlying how hypoxia may alter other brain functions remains largely unknown. In this report, we used marine medaka as a model and conducted a high-throughput RNA sequencing followed by bioinformatics analysis on hypoxia-exposed brain tissues, aiming to determine the change of transcriptional signature and to unravel the pathways that are induced by hypoxia. We found that hypoxia lead to dysregulation of brain functions (including synaptic transmission, axon guidance, potassium ion transport, neuron differentiation, and development of brain and pituitary gland), and also signaling pathways (e.g., gap junction, calcium signaling pathway, and GnRH signaling pathway). Our results further demonstrate gender-specific responses to hypoxia in female and male fish's brains, which provides novel insights into the mechanism underlying the hypoxia induced sex specific brain functions impairments.
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; State Key Laboratory in Marine Pollution, Hong Kong SAR, China. Electronic address: balllai@hku.hk.
authors.forename: Keng-Po
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. Electronic address: marcowanger@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Jing-Woei
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; State Key Laboratory in Marine Pollution, Hong Kong SAR, China. Electronic address: annatse@hku.hk.
authors.forename: Anna Chung-Kwan
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Tse
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; State Key Laboratory in Marine Pollution, Hong Kong SAR, China. Electronic address: bioywang@hku.hk.
authors.forename: Simon Yuan
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. Electronic address: tf.chan@cuhk.edu.hk.
authors.forename: Ting-Fung
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; State Key Laboratory in Marine Pollution, Hong Kong SAR, China. Electronic address: rudolfwu@hku.hk.
authors.forename: Rudolf Shiu-Sun
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D004703:Endocrine System / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D012739:Gonadal Steroid Hormones / Q000378:metabolism; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D000860:Hypoxia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D009990:Oryzias / Q000502:physiology*; D012098:Reproduction; D012737:Sex Factors
chemical_list: D012739:Gonadal Steroid Hormones
keywords: Brain; Hypoxia; Medaka; Synaptic transmission; Transcriptome