A multitude of genes tightly regulate ovarian follicular development and hormone secretion. These complex and coordinated biological processes are altered during pregnancy. In order to further understand the regulatory role of these genes during pregnancy, it is important to screen the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the ovaries of pregnant and nonpregnant mammals. To detect the genes associated with the development of pregnancy in goats, DEGs from the ovaries from pregnant and nonpregnant Anhui white goats (pAWGs and nAWGs, respectively) were analyzed using RNA sequencing technology (RNA-Seq). In this study, 13,676,394 and 13,549,560 clean reads were generated from pAWGs and nAWGs, respectively, and 1724 DEGs were identified between the two libraries. Compared with nAWGs, 1033 genes were upregulated and 691 genes were downregulated in pAWGs, including PGR, PRLR, STAR and CYP19A1, which play important roles in goat reproduction. Gene Ontology analysis showed that the DEGs were enriched for 49 functional GO terms. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis revealed that 397 DEGs were significantly enriched in 13 pathways, including “cell cycle”, “cytokine–cytokine receptor interaction” and “steroid biosynthesis”, suggesting that the genes may be associated with cell cycle regulation, follicular development and hormone secretion to regulate the reproduction process. Additionally, quantitative real-time PCR was used to verify the reliability of the RNA-Seq data. The data obtained in this work enrich the genetic resources of goat and provide a further understanding of the complex molecular regulatory mechanisms occurring during the development of pregnancy and reproduction in goats. The DEGs screened in this study may play an important role in follicular development and hormone secretion and they would provide scientific basis for related research in the future.

中文翻译：

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使用RNA-Seq对孕妇山羊和非孕妇山羊卵巢之间差异表达基因的比较分析

众多基因紧密调节卵巢的卵泡发育和激素分泌。这些复杂而协调的生物学过程在怀孕期间会改变。为了进一步了解这些基因在怀孕期间的调控作用，重要的是在怀孕和未怀孕的哺乳动物的卵巢中筛选差异表达的基因（DEG）。为了检测与山羊妊娠发展相关的基因，使用RNA测序技术（RNA-Seq）分析了来自怀孕和未怀孕的安徽白山羊卵巢的DEG（分别为pAWG和nAWG）。在这项研究中，分别从pAWG和nAWG产生了13,676,394和13,549,560个干净的读数，并且在两个文库之间鉴定出1724个DEG。与nAWG相比，pAWG中有1033个基因被上调，而691个基因被下调，其中PGR，PRLR，STAR和CYP19A1在山羊繁殖中起重要作用。基因本体分析表明，DEG富含49个功能性GO术语。《京都议定书》的基因和基因组百科全书分析显示，397个DEGs在“细胞周期”，“细胞因子-细胞因子受体相互作用”和“类固醇生物合成”等13个途径中显着丰富，表明这些基因可能与细胞周期调控，卵泡发育有关。发育和激素分泌来调节生殖过程。此外，定量实时PCR用于验证RNA-Seq数据的可靠性。通过这项工作获得的数据丰富了山羊的遗传资源，并提供了对山羊妊娠和生殖过程中发生的复杂分子调控机制的进一步了解。在这项研究中筛选的DEGs可能在卵泡发育和激素分泌中起重要作用，并将为将来的相关研究提供科学依据。