Identification of Likely Novel piRNA Sequences in Human Testis Tissue and Bioinformatics Analysis

Background and Objective: Small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs) have been studied in the male reproductive system. One of the most important small RNAs (sRNAs) investigated in spermatogenesis is piRNA. This study performed a comprehensive analysis and comparison of the expression profiles of novel sRNA sequences, which are predicted to be piRNAs, in male testicular tissue. Materials and Methods: The GSE248576 dataset in NCBI-GEO was used to discover novel sequences. Subsequently, potential target genes of the discovered sequences were predicted using the Miranda tool. Finally, regulatory pathways related to spermatogenesis were obtained using bioinformatics tools. Results: In this study, 208 novel sRNA sequences were identified as piRNAs in male testicular tissue that have not been reported in small sequence databases so far. KEGG and Reactome pathways, protein-protein interaction analysis, significant terms related to the regulatory processes of mitosis and meiosis, and cell growth in gametogenesis were identified in the gene ontology analysis. Conclusion: The newly found sRNA sequences and their predicted target genes in this study could be promising candidates for investigating their role in impaired spermatogenesis as an infertility phenotype in men.