How to translate text using browser tools
14 September 2016 SpermBase: A Database for Sperm-Borne RNA Contents
Andrew Schuster, Chong Tang, Yeming Xie, Nicole Ortogero, Shuiqiao Yuan, Wei Yan
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Since their discovery approximately three decades ago, sperm-borne RNAs, both large/small and coding/noncoding, have been reported in multiple organisms, and some have been implicated in spermatogenesis, early development, and epigenetic inheritance. Despite these advances, isolation, quantification, and annotation of sperm-borne RNAs remain nontrivial. The yields and subspecies of sperm-borne RNAs isolated from sperm can vary drastically depending on the methods used, and no cross-species analyses of sperm RNA contents have ever been conducted using a standardized sperm RNA isolation protocol. To address these issues, we developed a simple RNA isolation method that is applicable to sperm of various species, thus allowing for reliable interspecies comparisons. Based on RNA-Seq analyses, we established SpermBase (  www.spermbase.org), a database dedicated to sperm-borne RNA profiling of multiple species. Currently, SpermBase contains large and small RNA expression data for mouse, rat, rabbit, and human total sperm and sperm heads. By analyzing large and small RNAs for conserved features, we found that many sperm-borne RNA species were conserved across all four species analyzed, and among the conserved small RNAs, sperm-borne tRNA-derived small noncoding RNAs and miRNAs can target a large number of genes known to be critical for early development.

Andrew Schuster, Chong Tang, Yeming Xie, Nicole Ortogero, Shuiqiao Yuan, and Wei Yan "SpermBase: A Database for Sperm-Borne RNA Contents," Biology of Reproduction 95(5), (14 September 2016). https://doi.org/10.1095/biolreprod.116.142190
Received: 24 May 2016; Accepted: 1 September 2016; Published: 14 September 2016
KEYWORDS
early development
epigenetics
noncoding RNA
reprogramming
sperm
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission
Back to Top