design: Total RNA for RNA sequencing was extracted from testicle tissue using the RNeasy Midi Kit from Qiagen according to the manufacturers instruction (Qiagen, CA, USA). Concentrations were measured using a NanoDrop ND-1000 Spectrophotometer (NanoDrop Technologies, DE, USA) and the RNA quality was examined by the 28S:18S rRNA ratio using the RNA 6000 Nano LabChip Kit on 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent Technologies, CA, USA). All samples displayed a 260/280 ratio >1.8 and RNA integrity numbers (RIN) >8.5. TruSeq RNA v2 (Illumina). 2 g RNA was used as input, and 4 mins fragmentation at 94 oC was employed.