Metabolomic Analysis of SCD During Goose Follicular Development: Implications for Lipid Metabolism

Abstract

Background Stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) is known to be an important rate-limiting enzyme in the production of MUFA. The role of this enzyme in goose follicular development is poorly understood. To investigate the metabolic mechanism of SCD during goose follicular development, we observed SCD expression patterns during follicular development in vivo and in vitro using quantitative reverse-transcription (qRT)-PCR. Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was used to determine a cellular model of SCD function in granulosa cells (GCs) via SCD overexpression and knockdown.Results qRT-PCR analysis showed that SCD was abundantly expressed in the GC layer, and was upregulated in preovulatory follicles. Peak expression was found in F1 and prehierarchal follicles with diameters of 4–6 mm and 8–10 mm, respectively. We further found the mRNA expression and corresponding enzyme activity to occur in a time-dependent oscillation in vitro, beginning on the first day of GC culture. By using LC-MS/MS, we identified numerous changes in metabolite activation and developed an overview of multiple metabolic pathways, ten of which were associated with lipid metabolism and enriched in both the overexpressed and the knockdown groups.ConclusionsWe confirmed cholesterol and pantothenol or pantothenate as potential metabolite biomarkers for studying SCD-related lipid metabolism in goose GCs.