GSE118346
Gonadotropin-mediated miRNA expression at onset of puberty in rhesus monkey is posited to terminate a hypothyroid state of the testis
Goal:  To identify small RNA associated with the decision of undifferentiated spermatogonia to commit to a pathway of differentiation. Methods: testis small RNA profiles of 6 juvenile wild-type rhesus monkeys (3 vehicle-treated; 3 gonadotropin treated) were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate, using Ion Torrent. The sequence reads that passed filters were analyzed with miRDeep2, HTSeq counts and edgeR. qRT–PCR validation was performed using SYBR Green assays Results: We mapped about 3 million sequence reads per sample to the rhesus monkey genome (rheMac 2 and rheMac 8.0.1) and identified 932 small RNAs in the testes of wild type monkeys with Bowtie and miRDeep2 workflow.  Approximately a combined 7% of unique transcripts showed differential expression between vehicle and gonadotropin treatment for 48 and 96h, with a fold change =1.5 and p value <0.05. Altered expression of 12 genes was confirmed with qRT–PCR, substantiating the RNA-seq findings. Conclusions: The testis transcriptome of the juvenile monkey contained 932 non coding smallRNA.  Gonadotropin stimulation for 48 h resulted in the commitment of spermatogonia to differentiate and this was associated with the emergence of 51 differentially expressed genes. Funding support: NIH R01 HD072189 to Tony Plant Overall design: Whole testis smallRNA profiles of juvenile wild type rhesus monkeys (3 vehicle-treated; 3 gonadotropin treated) were generated by deep sequencing in triplicate, using Ion Torrent