Patterns of expression of sperm and seminal plasma microRNAs in boar semen

Although sperm and seminal plasma differ in their origin, biophysical and biochemical properties of seminal plasma influence the sperm function. Seminal plasma is a fluid medium containing substances from testes, epididymides and accessory glands. Composition of seminal plasma varies among animal species and in boars, prostate and bulbourethral glands are major contributors to the volume and contents. While the origin of some components of seminal plasma are known, the source of recently discovered seminal plasma microRNAs remains unknown, in part due to the difficulty of recovering and characterizing RNA from porcine sperm and seminal plasma. To test the hypothesis that seminal plasma miRNAs interact with sperm, the first objective was to validate protocols for recovering RNAs from porcine seminal plasma and sperm, whereas the second objective was to characterize expression patterns of 84 prioritized microRNAs employing real time PCR methodology. The study identified a relationship between sperm and seminal plasma microRNAs, based on the normalized threshold cycle of amplifying cDNA in sperm and seminal plasma from the same semen of Landrace boars. Therefore, it was concluded that seminal plasma miRNAs may originate from sperm or these miRNAs may shuttle between sperm and seminal plasma in order to facilitate cell-to-cell communication.