Alminana, C., Caballero, I., Heath, P. et al. (10 more authors) (2014) The battle of the sexes starts in the oviduct: modulation of oviductal transcriptome by X and Y-bearing spermatozoa. BMC Genomics, 15. 293. ISSN 1471-2164
Abstract
BACKGROUND:Sex allocation of offspring in mammals is usually considered as a matter of chance, being dependent on whether an X- or a Y-chromosome-bearing spermatozoon reaches the oocyte first. Here we investigated the alternative possibility, namely that the oviducts can recognise X- and Y- spermatozoa, and may thus be able to bias the offspring sex ratio.
RESULTS:By introducing X- or Y-sperm populations into the two separate oviducts of single female pigs using bilateral laparoscopic insemination we found that the spermatozoa did indeed elicit sex-specific transcriptomic responses. Microarray analysis revealed that 501 were consistently altered (P-value <0.05) in the oviduct in the presence of Y-chromosome-bearing spermatozoa compared to the presence of X-chromosome-bearing spermatozoa. From these 501 transcripts, 271 transcripts (54.1%) were down-regulated and 230 transcripts (45.9%) were up-regulated when the Y- chromosome-bearing spermatozoa was present in the oviduct. Our data showed that local immune responses specific to each sperm type were elicited within the oviduct. In addition, either type of spermatozoa elicits sex-specific signal transduction signalling by oviductal cells.
CONCLUSIONS:Our data suggest that the oviduct functions as a biological sensor that screens the spermatozoon, and then responds by modifying the oviductal environment. We hypothesize that there might exist a gender biasing mechanism controlled by the female.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Almiñana et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to 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 credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
Keywords: | X and Y-chromosome bearing spermatozoa; Oviduct; Transcriptome; Sex selection |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > The Medical School (Sheffield) > Division of Genomic Medicine (Sheffield) > Department of Oncology and Metabolism (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > Sheffield Teaching Hospitals |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 25 Aug 2016 15:19 |
Last Modified: | 25 Aug 2016 15:19 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-15-293 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | BioMed Central |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1186/1471-2164-15-293 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:104101 |