bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/673558; this version posted February 27, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 1 Gene expression profiling of corpus luteum reveals the 2 importance of immune system during early pregnancy in 3 domestic sheep. 4 Kisun Pokharel1, Jaana Peippo2 Melak Weldenegodguad1, Mervi Honkatukia2, Meng-Hua Li3*, Juha 5 Kantanen1* 6 1 Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Jokioinen, Finland 7 2 Nordgen – The Nordic Genetic Resources Center, Ås, Norway 8 3 College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agriculture University, Beijing, China 9 * Correspondence: MHL,
[email protected]; JK,
[email protected] 10 Abstract: The majority of pregnancy loss in ruminants occurs during the preimplantation stage, which is thus 11 the most critical period determining reproductive success. While ovulation rate is the major determinant of 12 litter size in sheep, interactions among the conceptus, corpus luteum and endometrium are essential for 13 pregnancy success. Here, we performed a comparative transcriptome study by sequencing total mRNA from 14 corpus luteum (CL) collected during the preimplantation stage of pregnancy in Finnsheep, Texel and F1 15 crosses, and mapping the RNA-Seq reads to the latest Rambouillet reference genome. A total of 21,287 genes 16 were expressed in our dataset. Highly expressed autosomal genes in the CL were associated with biological 17 processes such as progesterone formation (STAR, CYP11A1, and HSD3B1) and embryo implantation (eg.