De Novo Assembly and Comparative Transcriptome Profiling of Anser anser and Anser cygnoides Geese Species’ Embryonic Skin Feather Follicles

Abstract

Geese feather production and the quality of downy feathers are additional economically important traits in the geese industry. However, little information is available about the molecular mechanisms fundamental to feather formation and the quality of feathers in geese. This study conducted de novo transcriptome sequencing analysis of two related geese species using the Illumina 4000 platform to determine the genes involved in embryonic skin feather follicle development. A total of 165,564,278 for Anser anser and 144,595,262 for Anser cygnoides clean reads were generated, which were further assembled into 77,134 unigenes with an average length of 906 base pairs in Anser anser and 66,041 unigenes with an average length of 922 base pairs in Anser cygnoides. To recognize the potential regulatory roles of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) during geese embryonic skin feather follicle development, the obtained unigenes were annotated to Gene Ontology (GO), Eukaryotic Orthologous Groups (KOG), and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) for functional analysis. In both species, GO and KOG had shown similar distribution patterns during functional annotation except for KEGG, which showed significant variation in signaling enrichment. Anser asnser was significantly enriched in the calcium signaling pathway, whereas Anser cygnoides was significantly enriched with glycerolipid metabolism. Further analysis indicated that 14,227 gene families were conserved between the species, among which a total of 20,715 specific gene families were identified. Comparative RNA-Seq data analysis may reveal inclusive knowledge to assist in the identification of genetic regulators at a molecular level to improve feather quality production in geese and other poultry species.

Characterization of Embryonic Skin Transcriptome in Anser cygnoides at Three Feather Follicles Developmental Stages

“…As a large modular network, MAPK pathway regulates multiple physiological processes including the cell growth and differentiation (Junttila et al 2008). And the interactions of MAPK signaling play a crucial role in the keratinocyte differentiation, which can also adjust the skin homeostasis to maintain the various functions of the epidermis (Schmidt 2001). Previous studies had indicated that MAPK signaling pathway is widely required in various aspect of hair, feather, and wool follicles cycle and morphogenesis in cashmere goat (Yuan et al 2013), Pekin duck (Chen et al 2017), Tibetan sheep , and mice (Akilli Öztürk et al 2015).…”

Transcriptional Characteristics Showed That miR-144-y/FOXO3 Participates in Embryonic Skin and Feather Follicle Development in Zhedong White Goose

“…In addition, the most important secreted genes during feather follicle initiation and development are members of the inhibitors of Wnt signaling, including WIF1 and their receptors, including Frizzled 6 (FZD6), which were also detected as significantly regulated genes in the DEGs dataset. Several studies have argued that many of the DEGs that contribute to the Wnt signal pathway are present in the dorsal tissues of geese from various breeds and at different embryonic days [ 15 , 16 , 17 ]. The Wnt signaling is known to play a crucial role in regulating follicle formation in the developing avian skin [ 42 ], and is the major pathway that regulates the patterning of skin and controls how adult and embryonic stem cells decide which cell lineages to adopt for the skin and its appendages, in addition to regulating differentiated skin cells activities [ 43 ].…”

“…With the progressive understanding of the developmental process of feather follicles, more and more new key regulatory factors are being uncovered in addition to the signals mentioned above. The advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS) has become a powerful tool to uncover the molecular signaling involved in the formation of feather follicles for feather maturation [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. While the feather follicles of chickens and ducks are increasingly well studied, geese, as poultry with extremely high down feather quality, have been relatively seldomly studied.…”

In Ovo Injection of CHIR-99021 Promotes Feather Follicle Development via Modulating the Wnt Signaling Pathway and Transcriptome in Goose Embryos (Anser cygnoides)

“…Wnt signaling is very crucial for feather follicle development. The previous studies have suggested that there are a lot of DEGs in geese dorsal tissues across embryonic days and in different breeds ( Liu, et al, 2020 ; Liu, et al, 2018 ; Lowe, et al, 2015 ; Sello, et al, 2019 ) and these DEGs participate in the Wnt, BMP, MAPK, and Notch pathways. With the advancement of genetic engineering techniques, such as gene knockout and gene location mutation, it has been confirmed that the Wnt signaling pathway plays a key regulatory role during feather follicle development ( Andl, et al, 2002 ; Liu, et al, 2020 ; Xie, et al, 2020a ).…”