SpermBase: A Database for Sperm-Borne RNA Contents
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Authors
Schuster, Andrew
Tang, Chong
Xie, Yeming
Ortogero, Nicole
Yuan, Shuiqiao
Yan, Wei
Issue Date
2016
Type
Article
Language
Keywords
early development , epigenetics , noncoding RNA , reprogramming , sperm
Alternative Title
Abstract
Since their discovery approximately three decades ago, sperm-borne RNAs, both large/small and coding/noncoding, have been reported in multiple organisms, and some have been implicated in spermatogenesis, early development, and epigenetic inheritance. Despite these advances, isolation, quantification, and annotation of sperm-borne RNAs remain nontrivial. The yields and subspecies of sperm-borne RNAs isolated from sperm can vary drastically depending on the methods used, and no cross-species analyses of sperm RNA contents have ever been conducted using a standardized sperm RNA isolation protocol. To address these issues, we developed a simple RNA isolation method that is applicable to sperm of various species, thus allowing for reliable interspecies comparisons. Based on RNASeq analyses, we established SpermBase (www.spermbase.org), a database dedicated to sperm-borne RNA profiling of multiple species. Currently, SpermBase contains large and small RNA expression data for mouse, rat, rabbit, and human total sperm and sperm heads. By analyzing large and small RNAs for conserved features, we found that many sperm-borne RNA species were conserved across all four species analyzed, and among the conserved small RNAs, sperm-borne tRNA-derived small noncoding RNAs and miRNAs can target a large number of genes known to be critical for early development.
Description
Citation
Andrew Schuster, Chong Tang, Yeming Xie, Nicole Ortogero, Shuiqiao Yuan, Wei Yan, SpermBase: A Database for Sperm-Borne RNA Contents, Biology of Reproduction, Volume 95, Issue 5, 1 November 2016, 99, 1Ð12, https://doi.org/10.1095/biolreprod.116.142190
Publisher
License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Journal
Volume
Issue
PubMed ID
ISSN
0006-3363