Characterization of sperm lncRNA and its differently expression in the sperm of asthenozoospermic patients. Homo sapiens

Growing evidences have shown that many transcripts have been discovered in sperm and small noncoding RNAs, such as miRNA and tsRNA, of sperm paly an important role in the transgenerational transmission of paternal lifetime experiences. However, the expression profile of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in mammalian sperm has not been systematically investigated. Furthermore, Abnormal expression of lncRNA whether or not related with the asthenozoospermic is completely unknown. In the present study, highly purified RNA was served to investigate lncRNA expression profiles in human mature sperm by stranded-specific RNA-seq. We identified 38,307 known and 27,472 novel lncRNA genes, and the existence of intact LncRNA transcripts was confirmed by RT-PCR and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) on two representative LncRNAs. Many lncRNAs exclusive were expressed in testis and sperm. 880 lncRNA sequences were conserved between human and mouse with > 80% overlap. Compared with normal population, the lncRNA profiles in asthenozoospermic patients’ sperm showed significant difference with 2437 up-regulation and 306 down-regulation of lncRNA. This study will provide a preliminary database valuable for identifying lncRNAs critical on sperm function regulation or important for screening the lncRNA markers of asthenozoospermia. Overall design: LncRNA profiles of sperm and testis were generated by stranded-specific RNA-seq, using Illumina HiSeqTM 4000 with PE100.