Proteome analysis of early lineage specification in bovine embryos.

During mammalian embryo development, the zygote undergoes embryonic cleavage in the oviduct and reaches the uterus at the morula stage, when compaction and early lineage specification take place. To increase knowledge about the associated changes of the embryonic protein repertoire, we performed a comprehensive proteomic analysis of in vitro produced bovine morulae and blastocysts (six biological replicates), using an iTRAQ-based approach. A total of 560 proteins were identified of which 502 were quantified. The abundance of 140 proteins was significantly different between morulae and blastocysts, among them nucleophosmin (NPM1), eukaryotic translation initiation factor 5A-1 (EIF5A), receptor of activated protein kinase C 1 (GNB2L1/RACK1), and annexin A6 (ANXA6) with increased, and glutathione S-transferase mu 3 (GSTM3), peroxiredoxin 2 (PRDX2), and aldo-keto reductase family 1 member B1 (AKR1B1) with decreased abundance in blastocysts. Seventy-three percent of abundance altered proteins increased, reflecting an increase of translation activity in this period. This is further supported by an increase in the abundance of proteins involved in the translation machinery and the synthesis of ATP. Additionally, a complementary 2D saturation DIGE analysis led to the detection of protein isoforms, e.g. of GSTM3 and PRDX2, relevant for this period of mammalian development, and exemplarily verified the results of the iTRAQ approach. In summary, our systematic differential proteome analysis of bovine morulae and blastocysts revealed new molecular correlates of early lineage specification and differentiation events during bovine embryogenesis.

Stage-specific proteome signatures in early bovine embryo development.

Development of early embryonic stages before activation of the embryonic genome depends on sufficiently stored products of the maternal genome, adequate recruitment and degradation of mRNAs, as well as activation, deactivation, and relocation of proteins. By application of an isobaric tagging for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ)-based approach, the proteomes of bovine embryos at the zygote and 2-cell and 4-cell stage with MII oocytes as a reference were quantitatively analyzed. Of 1072 quantified proteins, 87 differed significantly in abundance between the four stages. The proteomes of 2-cell and 4-cell embryos differed most from the reference MII oocyte, and a considerable fraction of proteins continuously increased in abundance during the stages analyzed, despite a strongly attenuated rate of translation reported for this period. Bioinformatic analysis revealed particularly interesting proteins involved in the p53 pathway, lipid metabolism, and mitosis. Verification of iTRAQ results by targeted SRM (selected reaction monitoring) analysis revealed excellent agreement for all five proteins analyzed. By principal component analysis, SRM quantifications comprising a panel of only five proteins were shown to discriminate between all four developmental stages analyzed here. For future experiments, an expanded SRM protein panel will provide the potential to detect developmental disturbances with high sensitivity and enable first insights into the underlying molecular pathways.