Gene expression profiling of rat testis development during the early post-natal stages

Spermatogenesis is a complex biological process that requires precise regulation of gene expression in the germ cells and their surrounding somatic cells. Some testis-specific genes are involved in different stages of spermatogenesis; however, the precise mechanisms of stage-specific spermatogenesis are still not elucidated. In this study, we first examined the expression patterns of SYCP3, Tnp2, CDH1, glial cell-line-derived neurotropic factor (GDNF) and GFRA1 mRNAs on post-natal days (PNDs) 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 25 and 30 in rat testis. SYCP3 mRNA was firstly detected from PND 15, while Tnp2 transcript was only found on PND 30. CDH1 mRNA was highly expressed before PND 6, but decreased dramatically on PND 8, then gradually increased until it started to decrease after 12 dpp. Low GDNF and GFRA1 mRNAs were found before PND 6, but gradually increased to the peak on PND 12, then gradually decreased to low level. According to the expression patterns of CDH1, GDNF and GFRA1, we hypothesized that PNDs 6-10 are critical period in the early spermatogenesis. We, therefore, explored gene expression pattern on PNDs 6, 8 and 10 using cDNA microarray. 700 (PND 8 vs PND 6), 4519 (PND 10 vs PND 8), and 4298 (PND 10 vs PND 6) differentially expressed genes (≥ 2-fold) were identified from the comparisons, which cover thousands of gene ontology categories (GO terms) and hundreds of signalling pathways. High consistency between microarray data and quantative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) was verified from five genes (LOC686076, Trib3, Cxcl6, LOC682508 and C2cd4d). These data provide more information to understand the precisely regulatory mechanism at the early stage of spermatogenesis.