Postnatal developmental trajectory of sex-biased gene expression in the mouse pituitary gland

• DOI: 10.1186/s13293-022-00467-7
• Publication Date: 2022-10-11T10:03:11Z
• Authors: Huayun Hou; Cadia Chan; Kyoko E. Yuki; Dustin Sokolowski; Anna Roy; Rihao Qu; Liis Uusküla-Reimand; Mariela Faykoo-Ma...; Matt Hudson; Christina Corre; Anna Goldenberg; Zhaolei Zhang; Mark R. Palmert; Michael D. Wilson
• Keywords: Human physiology; Expression (computer science); Developmental Biology

The pituitary gland regulates essential physiological processes such as growth, pubertal onset, stress response, metabolism, reproduction, and lactation. While sex biases in these functions hormone production have been described, the underlying identity, temporal deployment, cell-type specificity of sex-biased gene regulatory networks are not fully understood.To capture differences regulation dynamics during postnatal development, we performed 3' untranslated region sequencing small RNA to ascertain microRNA expression, respectively, across five ages (postnatal days 12, 22, 27, 32, 37) that span transition female male C57BL/6J mouse pituitaries (n = 5-6 biological replicates for each at age).We observed over 900 instances expression 17 microRNAs, with majority occurring puberty. Using miRNA-gene target interaction databases, identified 18 genes were putative targets 5 microRNAs. In addition, by combining our bulk RNA-seq publicly available single-nuclei data, obtained evidence proportion exist prior puberty persist post-puberty three major hormone-producing cell types: somatotropes, lactotropes, gonadotropes. Finally, types after accounting between sexes.Our study reveals identity developmental trajectory pituitary. This work also highlights importance considering composition when understanding regulated gland.