Open Access

ARTICLE

Small RNA sequencing revealed aberrant piRNA expression profiles in deciduas of recurrent spontaneous abortion patients

JIABAO WU^1,2,#, XIAOHUA LIU^1,2,#, LU HAN^1,2, HUA NIE^1,2, YUAN TANG^1,2, YUNGE TANG^1,3, GE SONG^1,5, LIXIN ZHENG^1,4, WEIBING QIN^1,2,*

1 NHC Key Laboratory of Male Reproduction and Genetics, Guangzhou, 510600, China
2 Department of Center Laboratory, Provincial Reproductive Science Institute (Guangdong Provincial Fertility Hospital), Guangzhou, 510600, China
3 Human Sperm Bank of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, 510600, China
4 Department of Reproduction Immunology and Genetics, Provincial Reproductive Science Institute (Guangdong Provincial Fertility Hospital), Guangzhou, 510600, China
5 Department of Reproduction Medicine, Provincial Reproductive Science Institute (Guangdong Provincial Fertility Hospital), Guangzhou, 510600, China

* Corresponding Author:WEIBING QIN. Email:

BIOCELL 2022, 46(4), 1013-1023. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2022.016744

Received 23 March 2021; Accepted 07 May 2021; Issue published 15 December 2021

Abstract

Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) is a novel class of non-coding RNAs. However, changes in piRNA expression profiles in recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) have not yet been investigated. The aim of this study was to identify differentially expressed piRNAs in deciduas of RSA patients. Decidua tissues were collected by curettage from recruited RSA patients and normal early pregnant (NEP) women with their informed consent. Small RNA sequencing was used to evaluate the differences in piRNA expression profiles between RSA and NEP. The present results demonstrated that the counts of total piRNA reads in RSA samples were increased compared with those in NEP samples (0.21% vs. 0.11%). Differential expression analysis identified 29 upregulated piRNAs and 18 downregulated piRNAs in RSA samples. RT-qPCR further confirmed that the expression levels of uniq-109625, uniq-89328, uniq-50651 and uniq-4569 were decreased in 8 RSA tissues, compared with 13 NEP tissues. Otherwise, pi-22628 and uniq-173406 were increased in 8 RSA tissues. Based on GO term and KEGG pathway analysis, we speculate that these piRNAs regulate RSA by targeting extracellular matrix component pathway, cell adhesion pathway and focal adhesion pathway. PiRNAs may be involved in RSA pathogenesis by target genes function on adhesion and extracellular matrix component.

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