Project description:Reproduction, as a physiologically complex process, can significantly affect the development of the sheep industry. However, a lack of overall understanding to sheep fecundity has long blocked the progress in sheep breeding and husbandry. Herein, in present study, we aimed to identify differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) from hypothalamus in sheep without FecB mutation in two comparison groups: polytocous (PF) versus (vs.) monotocous (MF) sheep at follicular phase and polytocous (PL) vs. monotocous (ML) sheep at luteal phase,expecting to provide an alternative method to identify DEPs associated with sheep prolificacy from the hypothalamus.
Project description:In the present study, we studied the effect of dietary selenium (Se) supplementation on the transcriptomic profile of sheep. The main objective was to evaluate the effect of Se-supplementation on the overall transcriptome of sheep, the altered pathways, and the biological processes related to it . A custom oligo microarray platform (AMADID: 070119) was designed, then used to profile gene expression from 20 samples from 10 sheep at two time points (T0; before Se-supplementation, and T40; at the end of a 40-d Se-supplementation period). Isolated and purified total RNAs were individually hybridized to the custom (4x44k) DNA microarray. The comparison of control and treated animal transcriptomes revealed a large set of differentially expressed genes. After functional analysis and qPCR validation, the result showed several pathways and biological processes that have been altered following Se-supplementation to the diet.
Project description:Body weight (BW) is a critical economic trait for meat production in sheep. The current study aimed to perform a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to detect significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are associated with BW in Hu sheep.
Project description:The sheep (Ovis aries) plays a major socio-economic role in the world. Copy number variations (CNVs) are increasingly recognized as a key and potent source of genetic variation and phenotypic diversity, but little is known about the extent to which CNVs contribute to genetic variation in Chinese sheep breeds. Analyses of CNVs in the genomes of eight sheep breeds were performed using the sheep SNP50 BeadChip genotyping array. A total of 111 CNV regions (CNVRs) were obtained from 160 Chinese sheep breeds. These CNVRs covered 13.75 Mb of the sheep genome sequence. A total of 22 Go terms and 17 candidate genes were obtained from the functional analysis. Ten CNVRs were selected for validation, of which 7 CNVRs were further experimentally confirmed by quantitative PCR. Four candidate genes were selected to confirm the results of the functional analysis. These results provide a resource for furthering understanding of ruminant biology, and for further improving the genetic quality of sheep breeds.
Project description:Mear prodution is the most important trait for sheep. In this study, we performed a Genome-wide association study (GWAS) by using Illumina Ovine SNP50 BeadChip in 329 purebred sheep phenotyped for 11 growth and meat production traits (birth weight, weaning weight, 6-month weight, eye muscle area, fat thickness, pre-weaning gain, post-weaning gain, daily weight gain, height at withers , chest girth and shin circumference). A total of 319 sheep and 48,198 SNPs were fitted using TASSEL 3.0 software as random effects in a mixed linear model. 36 chromosome-wise significant SNPs were identified for 7 traits and 10 of them reached genome-wide significance level consistently for post-weaning gain. Gene annotation was implemented based on the latest version3.1 ovine genome sequence (released October 2012), and meanwhile we referenced genomic information of human, bovine, mouse and rat. More than one-third SNPs (14 out of 36) were located within ovine genes , some other were located close to ovine genes (878bp-398165bp apart). 329 sheep DNA were scanned using OvineSNP50 Beadchip and the association is done between the SNP data and 11 different meat prodution traits
Project description:FecB (also known as BMPR1B) is a crucial gene in sheep reproduction, which has a mutation (A746G) that was found to increase the ovulation rate and litter size. The FecB mutation is associated with reproductive endocrinology, such mutation can control external estrous characteristics and affect follicle-stimulating hormone during the estrous cycle. Previous researches showed that the FecB mutation can regulate the transcriptomic profiles in the reproductive-related tissues including hypothalamus, pituitary, and ovary during the estrous cycle of Small Tailed Han sheep (STH). However, little research has been reported on the correlation between FecB mutation and the estrous cycle in STH sheep oviduct. To investigate the coding and non-coding transcriptomic profiles involved in the estrous cycle and FecB in the sheep oviduct, RNA sequencing was performed to analyze the transcriptomic profiles of mRNAs and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in the oviduct during the estrous cycle of STH sheep with mutant (FecBBB) and wild-type (FecB++) genotypes. In total, 21,863 lncRNAs and 43,674 mRNAs were screened.Together, our results can provide novel insights into the oviductal transcriptomic function against a FecB mutation background in sheep reproduction.
Project description:Here, we analyzed and identified the miRNA expression profile of three different intestinal tissues (i.e., duodenum, cecum, and colon) of sheep (Ovis aries) using high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatic methods. In total, 128 known miRNAs were identified, 526 novel miRNAs were predicted, and 202 differentially expressed miRNAs were found between the different tissues. Additionally, 4,422 candidate target genes were predicted, and 185 non-redundant GO annotation terms were identified using enrichment analysis. A total of 529 target genes were found to participate in 37 KEGG biological pathways, and 270 of these genes were significantly enriched in the metabolism category.