Losing the maternal effect gene Nlrp2 alters the ovulated mouse oocytes transcriptome and impacts histone demethylase KDM1B expression

We performed RNA sequencing on pools of oocytes after inducing ovarian stimulation in wild-type and Nlrp2-null female mice. We found 231 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in Nlrp2-null COCs compared to WT COCs (123 up- and 108 downregulated; adjusted p<0.05). The DEGs we identified were enriched for processes involved in neurogenesis, gland morphogenesis, and protein metabolism and for post-translationally methylated proteins. When we compared our RNA sequencing results to an oocyte-specific reference transcriptome that contains many previously unannotated transcripts, we found 228 DEGs, including genes not identified with the first analysis. Intriguingly, 68% and 56% of DEGs from the first and second analyses, respectively, overlap with oocyte-specific hyper- and hypomethylated domains. Transcriptome profiling of Nlrp2-null and WT oocytes