Comparison of the gene expression profile of testicular tissue before and after sexual maturity in Qianbei Ma goats

Abstract Background With long-term research on the reproductive ability of Qianbei Ma goat, we found that the puberty of the male goats comes at the age of 3 months and reaches sexual maturity at 4 months,the male goats are identified as physically mature at 9 months and able to mate. Compared with other kinds of breeds of goats, Qianbei Ma goat is featured with more faster growth and earlier sexual maturity.Therefore, in order to explore the laws of growth of Qianbei Ma goat before sexual maturity(3-month-old)and after sexual maturity (9-month-old). The testicular tissue was collected to explore their changes in morphology through HE staining, the serum was collected to detect the hormone content, and the mRNA expression profile of the testis was analyzed by transcriptomics. In this way, the effect of testicular development on the reproduction of Qianbei ma goats was further analyzed. Results The results showed that the area and diameter of spermatogenic tubules were larger at 9 months than 3 months, and the number of spermatocytes, interstitial cells, spermatogonia and secondary spermatocytes in the lumen of the tubules showed a similar trend. The appearance of spermatozoa at age 3 months indicated that puberty had begun in Qianbei Ma goats. The Elasa test for testosterone, luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone and anti-Müllerian hormone showed that the levels of these hormones in the serum at age 9 months were all highly significantly different than those at age 3 months (P 1 and p value