Different expression patterns of sperm motility-related genes in testis of diploid and tetraploid cyprinid fish(†)

Sperm motility is an important standard to measure the fertility of male. In our previous study, we found that the diploid spermatozoa from allotetraploid hybrid (4nAT) had longer durations of rapid and slow progressive motility than haploid spermatozoa from common carp (COC). In this study, to explore sperm motility-related molecular mechanisms, we compared the testis tissues transcriptomes from 2-year-old male COC and 4nAT. The RNA-seq data revealed that 2985 genes were differentially expressed between COC and 4nAT, including 2216 upregulated and 769 downregulated genes in 4nAT. Some differentially expressed genes, such as tubulin genes, dynein, axonemal, heavy chain(dnah) genes, mitogen-activated protein kinase(mapk) genes, tektin 4, FOX transcription factors, proteasome genes, and ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase(uchl) genes, are involved in the regulation of cell division, flagellar and ciliary motility, gene transcription, cytoskeleton, energy metabolism, and the ubiquitin–proteasome system, suggesting that these genes were related to sperm motility of the 4nAT. We confirmed the differential expression of 12 such genes in 4nAT by quantitative PCR. By western blotting, we also confirmed increased expression of Uchl3 in 4nAT testis. In addition, we identified 1915 and 2551 predicted long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) transcripts from testis tissue transcriptomes of COC and 4nAT, respectively. Of these, 1575 lncRNAs were specifically expressed in 4nAT and 939 were specifically expressed in COC. This study provides insights into the transcriptome profile of testis tissues from diploid and tetraploid, which are useful for research on regulatory mechanisms behind sperm motility in male polyploidy.