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Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology
Published in: Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology 1/2013

Open Access 01-12-2013 | Research

Transcriptome profiling of mice testes following low dose irradiation

Authors: Kirstine C Belling, Masami Tanaka, Marlene Danner Dalgaard, John Erik Nielsen, Henrik Bjørn Nielsen, Søren Brunak, Kristian Almstrup, Henrik Leffers

Published in: Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology | Issue 1/2013

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Abstract

Background

Radiotherapy is used routinely to treat testicular cancer. Testicular cells vary in radio-sensitivity and the aim of this study was to investigate cellular and molecular changes caused by low dose irradiation of mice testis and to identify transcripts from different cell types in the adult testis.

Methods

Transcriptome profiling was performed on total RNA from testes sampled at various time points (n = 17) after 1 Gy of irradiation. Transcripts displaying large overall expression changes during the time series, but small expression changes between neighbouring time points were selected for further analysis. These transcripts were separated into clusters and their cellular origin was determined. Immunohistochemistry and in silico quantification was further used to study cellular changes post-irradiation (pi).

Results

We identified a subset of transcripts (n = 988) where changes in expression pi can be explained by changes in cellularity. We separated the transcripts into five unique clusters that we associated with spermatogonia, spermatocytes, early spermatids, late spermatids and somatic cells, respectively. Transcripts in the somatic cell cluster showed large changes in expression pi, mainly caused by changes in cellularity. Further investigations revealed that the low dose irradiation seemed to cause Leydig cell hyperplasia, which contributed to the detected expression changes in the somatic cell cluster.

Conclusions

The five clusters represent gene expression in distinct cell types of the adult testis. We observed large expression changes in the somatic cell profile, which mainly could be attributed to changes in cellularity, but hyperplasia of Leydig cells may also play a role. We speculate that the possible hyperplasia may be caused by lower testosterone production and inadequate inhibin signalling due to missing germ cells.
Appendix
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Metadata
Title
Transcriptome profiling of mice testes following low dose irradiation
Authors
Kirstine C Belling
Masami Tanaka
Marlene Danner Dalgaard
John Erik Nielsen
Henrik Bjørn Nielsen
Søren Brunak
Kristian Almstrup
Henrik Leffers
Publication date
01-12-2013
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology / Issue 1/2013
Electronic ISSN: 1477-7827
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1477-7827-11-50

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