Double-stranded RNA in testis

We precipitated dsRNA using the monoclonal J2 antibody and deep-sequenced the enriched samples from testis of juvenile dicer knock-out mice, age matched controls and adult animals. The dsRNA transcriptome is significantly less complex in juvenile mice as compared to adult controls and, possibly as a consequence, the knock-out of Dicer had only a minor effect of the total number of transcribed regions associated with dsRNA. The genes that potentially generate dsRNA are significantly expressed in isolated sperm cells with particular enrichment in pachytene spermatocytes. Double-stranded RNA immunopurification using the J2 antibody (Scicons) from mouse testis, including 18 days old mice, age matched dicer knock-out mice and adult controls.本研究借助单克隆J2抗体沉淀双链RNA（double-stranded RNA，dsRNA），并对幼年Dicer敲除小鼠、年龄匹配对照组及成年动物的睾丸富集样本开展深度测序。相较于成年对照组，幼年小鼠的dsRNA转录组复杂度显著更低；据此推测，Dicer敲除仅对与dsRNA相关的转录区域总数产生微弱影响。潜在可产生dsRNA的基因在分离的精子细胞中呈显著高表达，且在粗线期精母细胞中尤为富集。本研究同时采用J2抗体（购自Scicons公司）对小鼠睾丸组织中的dsRNA进行免疫纯化，所纳入的样本包括18日龄小鼠、年龄匹配的Dicer敲除小鼠及成年对照组小鼠。