Plant & Animal Genomes XIX Conference

January 15-19, 2011
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Porcine Endometrial MiRNA Expression During The Estrous Cycle And Early Pregnancy

Jason W Ross^{1, 2} , Caixia Yang^1,2 , Elane C Wright¹ , Zhiqiang Du^1,2 , Max F Rothschild^1,2

¹  Department of Animal Science Iowa State University Ames, IA 50011

²  Center for Integrated Animal Genomics Iowa State University Ames, IA 50011

Pig uterine endometrium undergoes significant transcriptional and translational reorganization during the course of the estrous cycle and during early pregnancy establishment. MicroRNA (miRNA) are known to influence the mRNA and protein abundance through post-transcriptional gene regulation following interactions with the 3′UTR that lead to translation inhibition and or mRNA degradation. Our objective was to identify miRNAs that are differentially expressed in the uterine endometrium during the estrous cycle and early pregnancy in pigs. We collected uteri from pigs on days 0, 5, 10, 12, 14, and 18 of the estrous cycle and on days 10, 12, 14, and 18 of pregnancy (n= 4 pigs /day/status). Total RNA was extracted and utilized for preparation of 10 small RNA libraries that were subjected to massively parallel deep sequencing using the SOLiD sequencing system (Applied Biosystems). Sequencing reads were mapped and total reads for each day and pregnancy status were determined. Initial analysis identified a total of 3.48 million reads could be mapped to the human genome. Frequency of specific miRNA relative to the total reads within a library was utilized to identify miRNA expression changes during the estrous cycle and early pregnancy. Numerous miRNAs appeared to demonstrate differential expression in the uterine endometrium associated with steroid hormone changes of the estrous cycle and during early pregnancy establishment. This work was supported in part by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (2008-35205-05309).