Transcriptome sequencing reveals key potential long non-coding RNAs related to duration of fertility trait in the uterovaginal junction of egg-laying hens

Abstract

Duration of fertility, (DF) is an important functional trait in poultry production and lncRNAs have emerged as important regulators of various process including fertility. In this study we applied a genome-guided strategy to reconstruct the uterovaginal junction (UVJ) transcriptome of 14 egg-laying birds with long- and short-DF (n = 7); and sought to uncover key lncRNAs related to duration of fertility traits by RNA-sequencing technology. Examination of RNA-seq data revealed a total of 9977 lncRNAs including 2576 novel lncRNAs. Differential expression (DE) analysis of lncRNA identified 223 lncRNAs differentially expressed between the two groups. DE-lncRNA target genes prediction uncovered over 200 lncRNA target genes and functional enrichment tests predict a potential function of DE-lncRNAs. Gene ontology classification and pathway analysis revealed 8 DE-lncRNAs, with the majority of their target genes enriched in biological functions such as reproductive structure development, developmental process involved in reproduction, response to cytokine, carbohydrate binding, chromatin organization, and immune pathways. Differential expression of lncRNAs and target genes were confirmed by qPCR. Together, these results significantly expand the utility of the UVJ transcriptome and our analysis identification of key lncRNAs and their target genes regulating DF will form the baseline for understanding the molecular functions of lncRNAs regulating DF.

Detrimental effects of excessive fatty acid secretion on female sperm storage in chickens

“…Thus, we performed histological analysis of UVJ tissue and observed a significant difference in the density of SSTs between the HFSS and LFSS hens. A similar situation was reported by Adetula et al [59], who found more SSTs were embedded in the HFSS hens compared with LFSS hens.…”

Circular RNAs Are Regulators of Diverse Animal Transcriptomes: One Health Perspective

“…Understanding the epigenetic determinants of animal diseases and their role in pathogenesis, control, treatment and eradication represents a major opportunity to apply epigenetic markers for further improvement of animal productivity (Waddington, 2012). Skeletal muscle growth and differentiation (Luo et al, 2013;Nie et al, 2015), milk production (Yang et al, 2018) and egg laying (Adetula et al, 2018) are precisely regulated by hormonal and developmental cues with circRNA prominently serving as a rheostat to balance mRNA expression with noncoding RNA regulation.…”

Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Key Genes and Pathways Associated with Egg Production in Nandan-Yao Domestic Chicken

“…RNA-seq is a methodology for RNA pro ling based on next-generation sequencing that enables us to measure and compare gene expression patterns at an unprecedented resolution [12]. In recent years, to further explore the molecular mechanisms that regulate important economic traits of poultry, a large number of poultry transcriptome studies have been performed using RNA-Seq [7,[13][14][15][16]. The development of RNA sequencing has provided a powerful, highly reproducible, and cost-e cient tool for exploring the molecular mechanism of traits.…”