Effect of natural pre-luteolytic prostaglandin Fpulses on the bovine luteal transcriptome during spontaneous luteal regression

Megan A. Mezera, Wenli Li, Lihe Liu, Rina Meidan, Francisco Peñagaricano, Milo C. Wiltbank*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

The pulsatile pattern of prostaglandin F2alpha (PGF) secretion during spontaneous luteolysis is well documented, with multiple pulses of exogenous PGF necessary to induce regression using physiologic concentrations of PGF. However, during spontaneous regression, the earliest pulses of PGF are small and not associated with detectable changes in circulating progesterone (P4), bringing into question what, if any, role these early, subluteolytic PGF pulses have during physiologic regression. To investigate the effect of small PGF pulses, luteal biopsies were collected throughout natural luteolysis in conjunction with bihourly blood samples to determine circulating P4 and PGF metabolite to retrospectively assign biopsies to early and later regression. Whole transcriptome analysis was conducted on CL biopsies. Early PGF pulses altered the luteal transcriptome, inducing differential expression of 210 genes (Q < 0.05) during early regression, compared with 4615 differentially expressed genes during later regression. In early regression, few of these differentially expressed genes were directly associated with luteolysis, rather there were changes in local steroid and glutathione metabolism. Most (94%) differentially expressed genes from early regression were also differentially expressed during later regression, with 98% of these continuing to be altered in the same direction compared with CL at a similar stage of the cycle that had not yet been exposed to PGF. Thus, early, subluteolytic PGF pulses impact the luteal transcriptome, though not by altering steroidogenesis or causing direct inhibition of cellular function. Rather, small pulses alter pathways resulting in the removal of cellular support systems, which may sensitize the CL to later pulses of PGF.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1016-1029
Number of pages14
JournalBiology of Reproduction
Volume105
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Oct 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Society for the Study of Reproduction. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected].

Keywords

  • bovine
  • corpus luteum
  • luteolysis
  • RNAseq
  • transcriptomics

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