LAUSR

Abstract Pluripotency-associated transcription factors (PATFs) are involved in several cellular processes, such as transcription initiation, cellular metabolism, and cell fate determination in preimplantation embryos. Despite growing understanding of PATFs in pluripotent human and mouse cells, their roles in other species or cell types remain limited. The work aimed to determine the transcript availability of OCT4 and four non-canonical PATFs (NAC1, NR0B1, RONIN, and ZFP281) in goat ovaries, eggs, and cumulus cells. Goat ovaries were collected at slaughterhouses and cumulus-oocyte complexes (COC) were retrieved from 3 to 6 mm follicles. The COCs were subject to in vitro maturation in TCM-199 medium containing 2 mM l-glutamine, 5.0 μg mL−1 FSH, 10% FBS, and antibiotics at 38.5 °C with saturated humidity and 5% CO2 during 24 h. Gene activity was detected by both conventional reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and quantitative RT-PCR (RT-qPCR). In silico analysis were carried out for protein physical properties, phenetic analysis, and protein domains within goat, mouse, and human PATF orthologs. Products of all five PATFs analyzed (NAC1, NR0B1, OCT4, RONIN, and ZFP281) were detected in goat eggs, but NR0B1 was not detected in the ovary. Surprisingly, NR0B1, RONIN, and ZFP281 were also expressed in cumulus cells. All PATFs and their binding partners (i.e., OCT4-SOX2, RONIN HCF1, and NANOG-NR0B1-ZFP281-NAC1) showed similar protein size, molecular weight, and isoelectric point among species. The phenetic analysis clustered more closely goat and human proteins for OCT4, SOX2, NANOG, and NR0B1. Finally, both DNA-binding and transactivation domains were also highly conserved among species, particularly between goats and humans, suggesting that these PATFs may have conserved functions and similar target genes. In conclusion, non-canonical PATFs have distinctive transcript abundance in goat eggs and cumulus cells, while in silico approaches suggest that these genes may play similar roles to their mouse and human orthologs.