The piRNA pathway is essential for generating functional oocytes in golden hamsters.

Title of Paper:The piRNA pathway is essential for generating functional oocytes in golden hamsters.

Journal:Nature Cell Biology

Place of Publication:USA

Summary:Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are predominantly expressed in germ cells and function in gametogenesis in various species. However, Piwi-deficient female mice are fertile and mouse oocytes express a panel of small RNAs that do not appear to be widely representative of mammals. Thus, the function of piRNAs in mammalian oogenesis remains largely unclear. Here, we generated Piwil1- and Mov10l1-deficient golden hamsters and found that all female and male mutants were sterile, with severe defects in embryogenesis and spermatogenesis, respectively. In Piwil1-deficient female hamsters, the oocytes and embryos displayed aberrant transposon accumulation and extensive transcriptomic dysregulation, and the embryos were arrested at the two-cell stage with impaired zygotic genome activation. Moreover, PIWIL1-piRNAs exert a non-redundant function in silencing endogenous retroviruses in the oocytes and embryos. Together, our findings demonstrate that piRNAs are indispensable for generating functional germ cells in golden hamsters and show the value of this model species for piRNA studies in gametogenesis, especially those related to female infertility.

First Author:Hongdao Zhang

Correspondence Author:Jianmin Li,Ligang Wu,Wentao Zeng

All the Authors:YouQiang Su,Aimin Shi,Feiyang Diao,Jianli Zhou,Wen Xiao,Heling Fu,Shiqi Gao,Aihua Zhang,Ying Zhang,Yana Lai,Li Hou,Zhaozhen Zhang,Yali Xiao,Xiaolong Lv,Mingzhe Li,Qinghua Chen,Fengjuan Zhang

Document Code:10.1038/s41556-021-00750-6

Volume:23

Issue:9

Page Number:1013-1022

ISSN:1476-4679

Translation or Not:No

Date of Publication:2021-09

Release Time:2025-04-30