DDX3Y, a male-specific region of y chromosome gene, may modulate neuronal differentiation

Haghighat Vakilian, Mehdi Mirzaei, Mehdi Sharifi Tabar, Paria Pooyan, Lida Habibi Rezaee, Lindsay Parker, Paul A. Haynes, Hamid Gourabi, Hossein Baharvand, Ghasem Hosseini Salekdeh*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

58 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Although it is apparent that chromosome complement mediates sexually dimorphic expression patterns of some proteins that lead to functional differences, there has been insufficient evidence following the manipulation of the male-specific region of the Y chromosome (MSY) gene expression during neural development. In this study, we profiled the expression of 23 MSY genes and 15 of their X-linked homologues during neural cell differentiation of NTERA-2 human embryonal carcinoma cell line (NT2) cells in three different developmental stages using qRT-PCR, Western blotting, and immunofluorescence. The expression level of 12 Y-linked genes significantly increased over neural differentiation, including RBMY1, EIF1AY, DDX3Y, HSFY1, BPY2, PCDH11Y, UTY, RPS4Y1, USP9Y, SRY, PRY, and ZFY. We showed that siRNA-mediated knockdown of DDX3Y, a DEAD box RNA helicase enzyme, in neural progenitor cells impaired cell cycle progression and increased apoptosis, consequently interrupting differentiation. Label-free quantitative shotgun proteomics based on a spectral counting approach was then used to characterize the proteomic profile of the cells after DDX3Y knockdown. Among 917 reproducibly identified proteins detected, 71 proteins were differentially expressed following DDX3Y siRNA treatment compared with mock treated cells. Functional grouping indicated that these proteins were involved in cell cycle, RNA splicing, and apoptosis, among other biological functions. Our results suggest that MSY genes may play an important role in neural differentiation and demonstrate that DDX3Y could play a multifunctional role in neural cell development, probably in a sexually dimorphic manner.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3474-3483
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Proteome Research
Volume14
Issue number9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 4 Sept 2015

Keywords

  • Chromosome-Centric Human Proteome Project (C-HPP)
  • Cell-Based Human Proteome Project
  • Y-linked genes
  • DDX3Y
  • shotgun proteomics
  • apoptosis
  • cell cycle
  • RNA metabolism

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'DDX3Y, a male-specific region of y chromosome gene, may modulate neuronal differentiation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this