Project description:Black cattle is a new breed of beef cattle developed by combining modern biotechnologies such as somatic cell cloning and conventional breeding methods. To provide new ideas for improving meat quality and generating new breeds of cattle, the important candidate genes affecting fat deposition in two kinds of cattle were identified. Eighteen months Black cattles and Luxi cattles were randomly assigned into two environmental. The longissimus dorsi muscle were collected on Black cattle and Luxi cattle,for analyses including fatty acid determinationrs, high-throughput sequencing metagenomics, qRT-PCR expression profile and western blot.The ratio of unsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids was 1.37:1 and 1.24:1 in the muscle tissues of Black cattle and Luxi cattle, respectively. The results of RNA-Seq analysis revealed 1,415 DEGs(fold change ≥ ± 2, P<0.05) between the longissimus dorsi of Black cattle and yellow cattle. A total of 939 genes were upregulated, and the other 476 genes were downregulated. With GO enrichment analysis, it was found that the identified DEGs were significantly enriched in biological regulation, regulation of the Wnt signaling pathway, negative regulation of the Wnt signaling pathway, cAMP metabolic process, fat cell differentiation, and brown fat cell differentiation, among other functions. Regulation of lipolysis in adipocytes, AMPK signaling pathway, adipocytokine signaling pathway and PPAR signaling pathway in the KEGG pathway database were significantly enriched. PPI network analysis showed that the downregulated genes FABP4, ADIPOQ, PLIN1, PLIN2 and LIPE were closely linked to other DEGs and were the key sites of multiple metabolic pathways. Combined with qRT-PCR and protein expression profile analysis, the expression level of fat acid metabolism related genes (FABP4, ADIPOQ) in black cattle was high and the difference was significant. Changes in the expression of fatty acid metabolism-related genes in Black cattle and Luxi cattle were analyzed and important candidate marker genes (such as ADIPOQ and FABP4) that affect fat deposition were identified in order to provide a genetic basis for the efficient breeding of production performance, establish a molecular marker database for local cattle breeds and support the cultivation of new breeds.
Project description:Lifespan varies both within and across species, but the general principles of its control are not understood. To identify transcriptomic signatures of mammalian longevity, we sequenced multiple organs of young adult mammals corresponding to 8 different species, including Canadian beaver, long-tailed macaque, greater tube-nosed bat, baboon, white-footed mouse, sugar glider, Siberian chipmunk and American black bear. We aggregated this dataset with publicly available pan-mammalian data and performed multi-tissue gene expression analyses across 41 mammalian species. This allowed us to identifiy signatures of species longevity and assess their relationship with biomarkers of aging and lifespan-extending interventions. This dataset complements RNAseq profiles of tissues from 23 mammalian species stored at GSE43013.
Project description:We analyzed gene expression in the American black bear, Ursus americanus, using a custom 12,800 cDNA probe (BA02) microarray to detect differences in expression that occur in heart and liver during winter hibernation in comparison to summer active animals. We identified 245 genes in heart and 319 genes in liver that were differentially expressed between winter and summer. The expression of 24 genes was significantly elevated during hibernation in both heart and liver. These genes are mostly involved in lipid catabolism and protein biosynthesis and include RNA binding protein motif 3 (Rbm3), which enhances protein synthesis at mildly hypothermic temperatures. Elevated expression of protein biosynthesis genes suggests induction of translation that may be related to adaptive mechanisms reducing cardiac and muscle atrophies over extended periods of low metabolism and immobility during hibernation in bears. Coordinated reduction of transcription of genes involved in amino acid catabolism suggests redirection of amino acids from catabolic pathways to protein biosynthesis. We identify common for black bears and small mammalian hibernators transcriptional changes in the liver that include induction of genes responsible for fatty acid β oxidation and carbohydrate synthesis and depression of genes involved in lipid biosynthesis, carbohydrate catabolism, cellular respiration and detoxification pathways. Our findings show that modulation of gene expression during winter hibernation represents molecular mechanism of adaptation to extreme environments. Black bears sampled during winter hibernation were compared with the animals sampled during summer. Two tissue types, liver and heart, were hybridized on a custom 12,800 cDNA probe nylon membrane microarray platform . Six hibernating and five summer active bears were studied in experiments with liver tissue, six hibernating and five summer active animals were tested with heart tissue.
Project description:The genetic foundation of chicken tail feather color is not very well studied to date, though that of body feather color is extensively explored. In the present study, we used a synthetic chicken dwarf line (DW), which was originated from the hybrids between a black tail chicken breed, Rhode Island Red (RIR) and a white tail breed, Dwarf Layer (DL), to understand the genetic rules of the white/black tail color. The DW line still contain the individuals with black or white tails, even if the body feather are predominantly red, after more than ten generation of self-crossing and being selected for the body feather color. We firstly performed four crosses using the DW line chickens including black tail male to female, reciprocal crosses between the black and white, and white male to female to elucidate the inheritance pattern of the white/black tail. We found that (i) the white/black tail feather colors are independent of body feather color and (ii) the phenotype are autosomal simple trait and (iii) the white are dominant to the black in the DW lines. Furtherly, we performed a genome-wide association (GWA) analysis to determine the candidate genomic regions underlying the tail feather color by using black tail chickens from the RIR and DW chickens and white individuals from DW lines.