Mofang Liu, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited by the journal Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews-RNA to publish a review paper titled "Small Non-coding RNAs and Male Infertility" online. This review paper was completed by researcher Liu Mofang in cooperation with his research group Dr. Gou Lantao and doctoral student Dai Peng. It systematically summarized the functional mechanism of small molecule non-coding RNA in animal spermatogenesis, and the abnormality of small molecule non-coding RNA pathway and male infertility. latest research progress.
Noncoding RNA is a new type of gene expression regulator, which controls genome expression at the epigenetic, transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels, and participates in the regulation of almost all life processes in eukaryotes. Recent studies have shown that several types of small non-coding RNAs, such as micrornA, endogenous small interfering RNAs (endo-siRNAs) and piRNAs, are expressed in animal male germline cells and are essential for animal spermatogenesis. This review paper summarizes and discusses recent research progress on the role of these small noncoding RNAs in male germ cell development and differentiation, and looks forward to the future directions of this research field.
Liu Mofang's research group is dedicated to the study of the physiological and pathological functional mechanisms of small non-coding RNAs. Recent work has discovered the regulatory mechanism of the synergistic degradation of mouse pirna and its binding protein MIWI in later sperm cells (Dev Cell 2013), mouse pirna and its binding protein MIWI. Pachytene piRNAs guide the large-scale degradation of mRNA in the later stages of spermatogenesis (Cell Res 2014); microRNAs have also been found to play an extremely important regulatory role in inflammation-related tumorigenesis (Cancer Res 2014; Cell Res 2014; EMBO J 2012; Cell Res 2012; Cancer Res 2010).
This work was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Foundation of China and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.