Transcriptomics identified crucial candidate genes and pathways regulating early testicular development of drakes in the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal/thyroid axes

作者：Yunyi Chen, Xinyue Hu, Xuli Chi, Yifei Lin, Rulong Lin, Hongping Chen, Kaixian Cai, Fenglin Chen, Xiaolong Ye, Xiaopeng Li, Qingyuan Ouyang, Jie Li, La Zhu, hehe liu, Jiwei Hu, Luo Li, Jiwen Wang · 发表于：BMC Genomics · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.1186/s12864-025-12505-w · 研究领域：Hypothalamic control of reproductive hormones、Thyroid Disorders and Treatments、Genetic and Clinical Aspects of Sex Determination and Chromosomal Abnormalities

BACKGROUND: The crosstalk between the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) and hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axes plays an important role in gonadal development. However, the mechanism by which these 2 axes regulate early testicular development in drakes remains largely unknown. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to compare the morphology, histology, and transcriptomics between the precocious puberty (PP) and delayed puberty (DP) Longyan Shan-ma drakes (Anas platyrhynchos) to preliminarily reveal the mechanisms regulating early testicular development. RESULT: The histomorphological results showed that the colloid area and integrated optical density (IOD) of thyroid in PP group were significantly lower than those in DP group (P < 0.05), and the testis weight, testis index, seminiferous tubule diameter, and number of spermatogonia in PP group were significantly higher than those in DP group (P < 0.05). The transcriptomic results showed that between PP and DP groups, a total of 232, 574, 572, and 4,129 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in the hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid, and testis, respectively. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis showed that DEGs in hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid, and testis were significantly enriched in 3, 14, 16, and 27 KEGG pathways (P < 0.05), respectively, with the neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction pathway being the only one commonly enriched in all 4 tissues. Further, 11 key...