Identification of relevant differential genes to the divergent development of pectoral muscle in ducks by transcriptomic analysis

Abstract

Objective:The objective of this study was to identify candidate genes that play important roles in skeletal muscle development in ducks. Methods:In this study, we investigated the transcriptional sequencing of embryonic pectoral muscles from two specialized line LCA and LCC ducks which were developed from the Liancheng White ducks (female) and Cherry Valley ducks (male) F6 hybrid population. In addition, prediction of target genes for the differentially expressed mRNAs was conducted and the enriched gene ontology (GO) terms and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) signaling pathways were further analyzed. Finally, a protein-to-protein interaction (PPI) network was analyzed by using the target genes to gain insights into their potential functional association.Results: A total of 1428 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) with 762 were up-regulated genes and 666 were down-regulated genes in pectoral muscle of LCA and LCC ducks were identified by RNA-seq (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, 23 GO terms in the down-regulated genes and 75 GO terms in up-regulated genes were significantly enriched (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the top 5 most enriched pathways were ECM-receptor interaction, fatty acid degradation, pyruvate degradation, PPAR signaling pathway, and glycolysis/gluconeogenesis. Finally, the candidate genes including Integrin b3 (Itgb3), Pyruvate kinase M1/2 (Pkm), Insulin-like growth factor 1 (Igf1), glucose-6-phosphate isomerase(Gpi), GABA type A receptor-associated protein-like 1(Gabarapl1), and Thyroid hormone receptor beta (Thrb) were showed the most expression difference, and then selected to verification by qRT-PCR. The result of qRT-PCR was consistent with that of transcriptome sequencing. Conclusion: This study provided information of molecular mechanisms underly- A c c e p t e d A r t i c l eing the developmental differences in skeletal muscles between specialized duck lines.