Transcriptomic signature of in vitro heat stress challenged porcine granulosa cells

Exploration of heat stress induced genes in granulosa cells is critical to characterization of candidate genes for thermal stress research in pigs. This study aimed to gain insight into the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and signalling pathways regulating porcine granulosa cell adaptation to in vitro heat stress challenge at 42OC for 6 hours. Transcriptome profiling of heat stressed (treated) and non-heat stressed (control) granulosa cells was conducted using Illumina NextSeq2000 sequencing platform. The significant DEGs were selected using NOISeq R package with cut-offs, probability value ≥ 0.95 and absolute log2(fold change) ≥1. Bioinformatics analysis of DEGs were conducted to explore functional annotations enrichment, protein-protein interaction network and hub genes regulating the cellular homeostasis and survivability during heat stress challenge. Primary cell culture system of porcine granulosa cells isolated from small ovarian follicles was established, which was subjected to in vitro heat stress challenge at 42OC for 6 hours. RNA sequencing and analysis was conducted for heat stressed (treated) and non-heat stressed (control) groups to investigate the global expression dynamics of heat stress induced genes in porcine granulosa cells.