Systematic identification of long intergenic non-coding RNAs expressed in bovine oocytes

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are key regulators of diverse cellular processes. Although a number of studies have reported the identification of bovine lncRNAs across many tissues, very little is known about the identity and characteristics of lncRNAs in bovine oocytes.

A bovine oocyte cDNA library was constructed and sequenced using the Illumina HiSeq 2000 sequencing system. The oocyte transcriptome was constructed using the ab initio assembly software Scripture and Cufflinks. The assembled transcripts were categorized to identify the novel intergenic transcripts, and the coding potential of these novel transcripts was assessed using CPAT and PhyloCSF. The resulting candidate long intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) transcripts were further evaluated to determine if any of them contain any known protein coding domains in the Pfam database. RT-PCR was used to analyze the expression of oocyte-expressed lincRNAs in various bovine tissues.

A total of 85 million raw reads were generated from sequencing of the bovine oocyte library. Transcriptome reconstruction resulted in the assembly of a total of 42,396 transcripts from 37,678 genomic loci. Analysis of the assembled transcripts using the step-wide pipeline resulted in the identification of 1535 oocyte lincRNAs corresponding to 1183 putative non-coding genes. A comparison of the oocyte lincRNAs with the lncRNAs reported in other bovine tissues indicated that 970 of the 1535 oocyte lincRNAs appear to be unique to bovine oocytes. RT-PCR analysis of 5 selected lincRNAs showed either specific or predominant expression of 4 lincRNAs in the fetal ovary. Functional prediction of the oocyte-expressed lincRNAs suggested their involvement in oogenesis through regulating their neighboring protein-coding genes.

This study provides a starting point for future research aimed at understanding the roles of lncRNAs in controlling oocyte development and early embryogenesis in cattle.