Trancriptomic analysis of PKA and PKC signalling gene cascade in cultured human ovarian granulosa cells (KGN) [PMA treatments]

The oocyte’s capacity to complete maturation, to succeed fertilization and to reach the blastocyst stage is what defines the oocyte’s competence. The oocyte acquires this competence working closely with somatic cells of the follicle. Cumulus and granulosa cells provided support for the oocyte’s development and conversely the oocyte influence follicular cell growth and differentiation. Existing studies support the idea that follicular-stimulated hormone and luteinizing hormone play an essential role in oocyte competence acquisition through protein kinase A (PKA) and protein kinase C (PKC) signalling in granulosa cells. Therefore, human-like granulosa cells (KGN) were treated with forskolin 10 μM and phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate 0.1 μM for 24 hours in order to process a transcriptomic analysis of differentially express genes between treatment. Over 2000 genes were founded to be differentially express at cut-off fold change of 1.5 and a p-value of 0.05. Five major upstreams, EGF, TGFB1, VEGF, FGF2 and HGF were founded to play an important role in competence acquisition thought PKA and PKC signalling. Differentially expressed targeted genes of both signalling pathways were classified in seven major ovarian functions such as PTGS2, IL8 and IL6 in inflammation, STAR, CYP11A1, CYP19A1 in steroidogenesis, VEGFC, VEGFA, CXCR4 in angiogenesis, AREG, EGFR, SPRY2 in differentiation, BAX, BCL2L12, CASP1 in apoptosis, CCND1, CCNB1, CCNB2 in division and MMP1, MMP9, TIMP1 in ovulation. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that PKA and PKC signalling potentiate their effects in some functions such as inflammation and apoptosis while some others are more specific to one or the other protein kinase like differentiation, ovulation and angiogenesis that are thought to be more PKC-dependent in human granulosa cells. 8 samples were analysed, 4 controls compared to 4 Phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate treatments (total of 4 replicates).