Transcriptomic analysis reveals key regulators of mammogenesis and the pregnancy-lactation cycle

Sci China Life Sci. 2014 Mar;57(3):340-355. doi: 10.1007/s11427-013-4579-9. Epub 2014 Feb 19.

Abstract

An organ unique to mammals, the mammary gland develops 90% of its mass after birth and experiences the pregnancylactation-involution cycle (PL cycle) during reproduction. To understand mammogenesis at the transcriptomic level and using a ribo-minus RNA-seq protocol, we acquired greater than 50 million reads each for the mouse mammary gland during pregnancy (day 12 of pregnancy), lactation (day 14 of lactation), and involution (day 7 of involution). The pregnancy-, lactation- and involution-related sequencing reads were assembled into 17344, 10160, and 13739 protein-coding transcripts and 1803, 828, and 1288 non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), respectively. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were defined in the three samples, which comprised 4843 DEGs (749 up-regulated and 4094 down-regulated) from pregnancy to lactation and 4926 DEGs (4706 up-regulated and 220 down-regulated) from lactation to involution. Besides the obvious and substantive up- and down-regulation of the DEGs, we observe that lysosomal enzymes were highly expressed and that their expression coincided with milk secretion. Further analysis of transcription factors such as Trps1, Gtf2i, Tcf7l2, Nupr1, Vdr, Rb1, and Aebp1, and ncRNAs such as mir-125b, Let7, mir-146a, and mir-15 has enabled us to identify key regulators in mammary gland development and the PL cycle.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Animals, Newborn
  • Chromosome Mapping
  • Chromosomes, Mammalian / genetics
  • Cluster Analysis
  • Female
  • Gene Expression Profiling*
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental*
  • Gene Regulatory Networks
  • Lactation / genetics*
  • Male
  • Mammary Glands, Animal / embryology
  • Mammary Glands, Animal / growth & development
  • Mammary Glands, Animal / metabolism*
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred BALB C
  • Pregnancy
  • Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction