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Robertson et al. BMC Biology (2020) 18:103 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-020-00826-z RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Large-scale discovery of male reproductive tract-specific genes through analysis of RNA-seq datasets Matthew J. Robertson1,2, Katarzyna Kent3,4,5, Nathan Tharp3,4,5, Kaori Nozawa3,5, Laura Dean3,4,5, Michelle Mathew3,4,5, Sandra L. Grimm2,6, Zhifeng Yu3,5, Christine Légaré7,8, Yoshitaka Fujihara3,5,9,10, Masahito Ikawa9, Robert Sullivan7,8, Cristian Coarfa1,2,6*, Martin M. Matzuk1,3,5,6 and Thomas X. Garcia3,4,5* Abstract Background: The development of a safe, effective, reversible, non-hormonal contraceptive method for men has been an ongoing effort for the past few decades. However, despite significant progress on elucidating the function of key proteins involved in reproduction, understanding male reproductive physiology is limited by incomplete information on the genes expressed in reproductive tissues, and no contraceptive targets have so far reached clinical trials. To advance product development, further identification of novel reproductive tract-specific genes leading to potentially druggable protein targets is imperative. Results: In this study, we expand on previous single tissue, single species studies by integrating analysis of publicly available human and mouse RNA-seq datasets whose initial published purpose was not focused on identifying male reproductive tract-specific targets. We also incorporate analysis of additional newly acquired human and mouse testis and epididymis samples to increase the number of targets identified. We detected a combined total of 1178 genes for which no previous evidence of male reproductive tract-specific expression was annotated, many of which are potentially druggable targets.
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