Bovine oocyte exposure to perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS) induces phenotypic, transcriptomic, and DNA methylation changes in resulting embryos in vitro

Knowledge on the effects of perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS) on ovarian function is limited. In the current study, we investigated the sensitivity of oocytes to PFHxS during in vitro maturation (IVM), including conse-quences on embryo development at the morphological, transcriptomic, and epigenomic levels. Bovine cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) were exposed to PFHxS during 22 h IVM. Following fertilisation, developmental competence was recorded until day 8 of culture. Two experiments were conducted: 1) exposure of COCs to 0.01 mu g mL(-1) -100 mu g mL(-1) PFHxS followed by confocal imaging to detect neutral lipids and nuclei, and 2) exposure of COCs to 0.1 mu g mL(-1) PFHxS followed by analysis of transcriptomic and DNA methylation changes in blastocysts. Decreased oocyte developmental competence was observed upon exposure to & nbsp;>= 40 mu g mL(-1) PFHxS and altered lipid distribution was observed in the blastocysts upon exposure to 1-10 mu g mL(-1) PFHxS (not observed at lower or higher concentrations). Transcriptomic data showed that genes affected by 0.1 mu g mL(-1) PFHxS were enriched for pathways related to increased synthesis and production of reactive oxygen species. Enrichment for peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma and oestrogen pathways was also observed. Genes linked to DNA methylation changes were enriched for similar pathways. In conclusion, exposure of the bovine oocyte to PFHxS during the narrow window of IVM affected subsequent embryonic development, as reflected by morphological and mo- lecular changes. This suggests that PFHxS interferes with the final nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation of the oocyte leading to decreased developmental competence to blastocyst stage

Decoding gene expression in 2D and 3D

Image-based sequencing of RNA molecules directly in tissue samples provides a unique way of relating spatially varying gene expression to tissue morphology. Despite the fact that tissue samples are typically cut in micrometer thin sections, modern molecular detection methods result in signals so densely packed that optical “slicing” by imaging at multiple focal planes becomes necessary to image all signals. Chromatic aberration, signal crosstalk and low signal to noise ratio further complicates the analysis of multiple sequences in parallel. Here a previous 2D analysis approach for image-based gene decoding was used to show how signal count as well as signal precision is increased when analyzing the data in 3D instead. We corrected the extracted signal measurements for signal crosstalk, and improved the results of both 2D and 3D analysis. We applied our methodologies on a tissue sample imaged in six fluorescent channels during five cycles and seven focal planes, resulting in 210 images. Our methods are able to detect more than 5000 signals representing 140 different expressed genes analyzed and decoded in parallel.TissueMap