The fertile ovary transcriptome and proteome

Sammanfattning: The Human Protein Atlas is an open-source database containing information about protein expression and location in the human cells,tissues and organs. The aim is to map all the proteins in humans using various biotechnology techniques such as antibody-based imaging, andRNA sequencing etc. Based on previous transcriptome analysis, 173 genes were shown to have an elevated expression in ovary compared to all other major tissue types in the human body. There is however no information regarding the expression in ovary during the reproductive years versus the post-menopausal years. In this thesis, the gene expression in ovaries of women in reproductive age was compared with women in post-menopausal age. 509 genes were found to have an at least 2-fold higher mean value RNA expression in the reproductive age group. 14 of these genes were analyzed further with antibody staining and multiplex immunofluorescence staining to localize the corresponding proteins. The results show that these genes are expressed in a variety of structures in the ovarian tissue, such as the oocyte, the granulosa cells and the corpus luteum. This thesis has demonstrated how data analysis can be used to find genes important for the ovary of women in reproductive age and in the future, this could aid research in female fertility.