1. The lncRNA Neat1 is required for corpus luteum formation and the establishment of pregnancy in a subpopulation of mice
- Author
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Toshihiko Fujimori, Jean-Christophe Marine, Eiki Takahashi, Mari Mito, Takashi Arai, Youko Fujita, Tetsuro Hirose, Laura Standaert, Shinichi Nakagawa, Masayuki Shimada, and Kaori Yanaka
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,endocrine system ,Stochastic failure ,Sfpq ,media_common.quotation_subject ,In situ hybridization ,Luteal phase ,Biology ,Corpus luteum ,Mice ,Paraspeckles ,Pregnancy ,Internal medicine ,Neat1 ,Gene expression ,In Situ Nick-End Labeling ,medicine ,Animals ,Molecular Biology ,Ovulation ,Research Articles ,Progesterone ,In Situ Hybridization ,DNA Primers ,media_common ,Mice, Knockout ,Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction ,Nuclear Proteins ,RNA-Binding Proteins ,medicine.disease ,Transplantation ,Fertility ,Endocrinology ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Female ,RNA, Long Noncoding ,Signal Transduction ,Developmental Biology - Abstract
Neat1 is a non-protein-coding RNA that serves as an architectural component of the nuclear bodies known as paraspeckles. Although cell-based studies indicate that Neat1 is a crucial regulator of gene expression, its physiological relevance remains unclear. Here, we find that Neat1 knockout (KO) mice stochastically fail to become pregnant despite normal ovulation. Unilateral transplantation of wild-type ovaries or the administration of progesterone partially rescued the phenotype, suggesting that corpus luteum dysfunction and concomitant low progesterone were the primary causes of the decreased fertility. In contrast to the faint expression observed in most of the adult tissues, Neat1 was highly expressed in the corpus luteum, and the formation of luteal tissue was severely impaired in nearly half of the Neat1 KO mice. These observations suggest that Neat1 is essential for the formation of the corpus luteum and for the subsequent establishment of pregnancy under a suboptimal condition that has not yet been identified. ispartof: Development vol:141 issue:23 pages:4618-27 ispartof: location:England status: published
- Published
- 2014