Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2011
College/Unit
Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design
Department/Program/Center
Division of Animal and Nutritional Sciences
Abstract
Background
Oocyte-derived maternal RNAs drive early embryogenesis when the newly formed embryo is transcriptionally inactive. Recent studies in zebrafish have identified the role of microRNAs during the maternal-to-embryonic transition (MET). MicroRNAs are short RNAs that bind to the 3' UTR of target mRNAs to repress their translation and accelerate their decay. Newborn ovary homeobox gene (NOBOX) is a transcription factor that is preferentially expressed in oocytes and essential for folliculogenesis in mice. NOBOX knockout mice are infertile and lack of NOBOX disrupts expression of many germ-cell specific genes and microRNAs. We recently reported the cloning and expression of bovine NOBOX during early embryonic development and our gene knockdown studies indicate that NOBOX is a maternal effect gene essential for early embryonic development. As NOBOX is a maternal transcript critical for development and NOBOX is depleted during early embryogenesis, we hypothesized that NOBOX is targeted by microRNAs for silencing and/or degradation.
Results
Using an algorithm "MicroInspector", a potential microRNA recognition element (MRE) for miR-196a was identified in the 3' UTR of the bovine NOBOX mRNA. Expression analysis of miR-196a in bovine oocytes and during early embryonic development indicated that it is expressed both in oocytes and embryos and tends to increase at the four-cell and eight-cell stages. Ectopic expression of NOBOX and miR-196a in HeLa cells inhibited the expression of NOBOX protein compared to the control cells without miR-196a. Similarly, the activity of a luciferase construct containing the entire 3' UTR of bovine NOBOX was suppressed, and the regulation was abolished by mutations in the miR-196a binding site indicating that the predicted MRE is critical for the direct and specific binding of miR-196a to the NOBOX mRNA. Furthermore, ectopic expression of miR-196a mimic in bovine early embryos significantly reduced the NOBOX expression at the both mRNA and protein levels.
Conclusion
Collectively, our results demonstrate that miR-196a is a bona fide negative regulator of NOBOX during bovine early embryogenesis.
Digital Commons Citation
Tripurani, Swamy K.; Lee, Kyung-Bon; Wee, Gabbine; Smith, George W.; and Yao, Jianbo, "MicroRNA-196a regulates bovine newborn ovary homeobox gene (NOBOX) expression during early embryogenesis" (2011). Faculty & Staff Scholarship. 2748.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/2748
Source Citation
Tripurani, S.K., Lee, K., Wee, G. et al. MicroRNA-196a regulates bovine newborn ovary homeobox gene (NOBOX) expression during early embryogenesis. BMC Dev Biol 11, 25 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-213X-11-25
Comments
© 2011 Tripurani et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.