Analysis of the variation in piRNA expression across three Mus species
Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs expressed in the germline of most animals whose main function is to silence transposable elements (TEs) through base-pair complementarity. In the current work, we studied the piRNA expression and its variation in the male germ line of three cl...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis de maestría |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2022 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) |
| Repositorio: | O2, repositorio institucional de la UOC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:openaccess.uoc.edu:10609/138748 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10609/138748 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | bioinformàtica bioestadística piRNAs bioinformática bioinformatics biostatistics Bioinformatics -- TFM Bioinformàtica -- TFM Bioinformática -- TFM |
| Sumario: | Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs expressed in the germline of most animals whose main function is to silence transposable elements (TEs) through base-pair complementarity. In the current work, we studied the piRNA expression and its variation in the male germ line of three closely related Mus species, providing the first small RNA datasets in two of these species. In addition, we evaluated factors that could influence piRNA expression and its diversity between species. First, we confirmed that our sequencing data was enriched in piRNAs. We also developed an approach to minimize length differences between orthologous regions that allowed performing multi-species differential expression analyses. In summary, we found that the piRNA-producing loci (piRNA clusters) and its expression have great differences between species. On the other hand, the most conserved piRNA clusters across species were those with higher expression of piRNAs. Finally, although we could not find significant associations between TEs and piRNA expression, we provide some examples consistent with a model where TE insertions alter production of piRNAs. Our results suggest that presence of transposon insertions may be the origin of a subset of new piRNA clusters. However, there must be additional factors explaining the piRNA diversity between species. Thus far, this has been the first piRNA study comparing closely related species within the mammalian clade and it is a first step towards unravelling the mechanisms by which piRNA-producing genes evolve. |
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