Microarray profiling of total testicular microRNAs in mouse

Gene expression in mammalian testis undergoing spermatogenesis is under strict post transcriptional regulation and microRNAs are known to play a role in this regulation. Considering the time window of first wave of spermatogenesis, we did a microarray profiling of total testicular microRNAs in mouse and found several significant patterns of variable expression of these molecules during the different stages analyzed here. Mouse testis tissue were taken at three stages, 8 days, 16 days and 24 days, during first wave of spermatogenesis for RNA extraction and hybridization on Locked Nucleic Acid(LNA) technology based Exiqon microarray platform. We included two biological replicates per age group and comparisons were done between the samples with respect to their hybridization to the 'reference' sample which had all the six samples pooled together.

处于精子发生过程中的哺乳动物睾丸内的基因表达，受到严格的转录后调控，而微小RNA（microRNAs）已知在该调控过程中发挥作用。鉴于精子发生首波的时间窗口特征，我们对小鼠睾丸内的总微小RNA进行了微阵列谱分析，在所分析的不同发育阶段中，发现了这些分子表达变化的多种显著模式。我们在精子发生首波过程中的三个时间节点——出生后8日、16日及24日，采集小鼠睾丸组织，用于RNA提取，并在基于锁核酸（Locked Nucleic Acid，LNA）技术的Exiqon微阵列平台上开展杂交实验。每个年龄组设置两个生物学重复样本，并以混合全部6个样本得到的‘参照’样本为杂交对照，完成各组样本间的表达量比较分析。