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Bakhtiarizadeh MR. Deciphering the role of alternative splicing as a potential regulator in fat-tail development of sheep: a comprehensive RNA-seq based study. Sci Rep 2024; 14:2361. [PMID: 38287039 PMCID: PMC10825154 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-52855-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/30/2023] [Accepted: 01/24/2024] [Indexed: 01/31/2024] Open
Abstract
Although research on alternative splicing (AS) has been widely conducted in mammals, no study has investigated the splicing profiles of genes involved in fat-tail formation in sheep. Here, for the first time, a comprehensive study was designed to investigate the profile of AS events and their involvement in fat-tail development of sheep. In total, 45 RNA-Seq samples related to seven different studies, which have compared the fat-tailed vs thin-tailed sheep breeds, were analyzed. Two independent tools, rMATS and Whippet, along with a set of stringent filters were applied to identify differential AS (DAS) events between the breeds per each study. Only DAS events that were detected by both tools as well as in at least three datasets with the same ΔPSI trend (percent spliced in), were considered as the final high-confidence set of DAS genes. Final results revealed 130 DAS skipped exon events (69 negative and 61 positive ΔPSI) belonged to 124 genes. Functional enrichment analysis highlighted the importance of the genes in the underlying molecular mechanisms of fat metabolism. Moreover, protein-protein interaction network analysis revealed that DAS genes are significantly connected. Of DAS genes, five transcription factors were found that were enriched in the biological process associated with lipid metabolism like "Fat Cell Differentiation". Further investigations of the findings along with a comprehensive literature review provided a reliable list of candidate genes that may potentially contribute to fat-tail formation including HSD11B1, SIRT2, STRN3 and TCF7L2. Based on the results, it can be stated that the AS patterns may have evolved, during the evolution of sheep breeds, as another layer of regulation to contribute to biological complexity by reprogramming the gene regulatory networks. This study provided the theoretical basis of the molecular mechanisms behind the sheep fat-tail development in terms of AS.
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Jin M, Yuan Z, Li T, Wang H, Wei C. The Effects of DDI1 on Inducing Differentiation in Ovine Preadipocytes via Oar-miR-432. Int J Mol Sci 2023; 24:11567. [PMID: 37511326 PMCID: PMC10380388 DOI: 10.3390/ijms241411567] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2023] [Revised: 07/05/2023] [Accepted: 07/14/2023] [Indexed: 07/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Reducing fat deposition in sheep (Ovis aries) tails is one of the most important ways to combat rising costs and control consumer preference. Our previous studies have shown that oar-miR-432 is differentially expressed in the tail adipose tissue of Hu (a fat-tailed sheep breed) and Tibetan (a thin-tailed sheep breed) sheep and is a key factor in the negative regulation of fat deposition through BMP2 in ovine preadipocytes. This study investigated the effect of oar-miR-432 and its target genes in ovine preadipocytes. A dual luciferase assay revealed that DDI1 is a direct target gene of oar-miR-432. We transfected an oar-miR-432 mimic and inhibitor into preadipocytes to analyze the expression of target genes. Overexpression of oar-miR-432 inhibits DDI1 expression, whereas inhibition showed the opposite results. Compared with thin-tailed sheep, DDI1 was highly expressed in the fat-tailed sheep at the mRNA and protein levels. Furthermore, we transfected the overexpression and knockdown target genes into preadipocytes to analyze their influence after inducing differentiation. Knockdown of DDI1 induced ovine preadipocyte differentiation into adipocytes but suppressed oar-miR-432 expression. Conversely, the overexpression of DDI1 significantly inhibited differentiation but promoted oar-miR-432 expression. DDI1 overexpression also decreased the content of triglycerides. Additionally, DDI1 is a nested gene in intron 1 of PDGFD. When DDI1 was overexpressed, the PDGFD expression also increased, whereas DDI1 knockdown showed the opposite results. This is the first study to reveal the biological mechanisms by which oar-miR-432 inhibits preadipocytes through DDI1 and provides insight into the molecular regulatory mechanisms of DDI1 in ovine preadipocytes. These results have important applications in animal breeding and obesity-related human diseases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Meilin Jin
- Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China; (M.J.); (T.L.)
- College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
| | - Zehu Yuan
- College of Animal Science and Technology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China;
| | - Taotao Li
- Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China; (M.J.); (T.L.)
| | - Huihua Wang
- Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China; (M.J.); (T.L.)
| | - Caihong Wei
- Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China; (M.J.); (T.L.)
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Dou J, Thangaraj SV, Puttabyatappa M, Elangovan VR, Bakulski K, Padmanabhan V. Developmental programming: Adipose depot-specific regulation of non-coding RNAs and their relation to coding RNA expression in prenatal testosterone and prenatal bisphenol-A -treated female sheep. Mol Cell Endocrinol 2023; 564:111868. [PMID: 36708980 PMCID: PMC10069610 DOI: 10.1016/j.mce.2023.111868] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2022] [Revised: 01/19/2023] [Accepted: 01/22/2023] [Indexed: 01/27/2023]
Abstract
Inappropriate developmental exposure to steroids is linked to metabolic disorders. Prenatal testosterone excess or bisphenol A (BPA, an environmental estrogen mimic) leads to insulin resistance and adipocyte disruptions in female lambs. Adipocytes are key regulators of insulin sensitivity. Metabolic tissue-specific differences in insulin sensitivity coupled with adipose depot-specific changes in key mRNAs, were previously observed with prenatal steroid exposure. We hypothesized that depot-specific changes in the non-coding RNA (ncRNA) - regulators of gene expression would account for the direction of changes seen in mRNAs. Non-coding RNA (lncRNA, miRNA, snoRNA, snRNA) from various adipose depots of prenatal testosterone and BPA-treated animals were sequenced. Adipose depot-specific changes in the ncRNA that are consistent with the depot-specific mRNA expression in terms of directionality of changes and functional implications in insulin resistance, adipocyte differentiation and cardiac hypertrophy were found. Importantly, the adipose depot-specific ncRNA changes were model-specific and mutually exclusive, suggestive of different regulatory entry points in this regulation.
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Affiliation(s)
- John Dou
- Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
| | | | | | | | - Kelly Bakulski
- Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
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Fei X, Jin M, Yuan Z, Li T, Lu Z, Wang H, Lu J, Quan K, Yang J, He M, Wang T, Wang Y, Wei C. MiRNA-Seq reveals key MicroRNAs involved in fat metabolism of sheep liver. Front Genet 2023; 14:985764. [PMID: 36968587 PMCID: PMC10035661 DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2023.985764] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/04/2022] [Accepted: 02/27/2023] [Indexed: 03/11/2023] Open
Abstract
There is a genetic difference between Hu sheep (short/fat-tailed sheep) and Tibetan sheep (short/thin-tailed sheep) in tail type, because of fat metabolism. Previous studies have mainly focused directly on sheep tail fat, which is not the main organ of fat metabolism. The function of miRNAs in sheep liver fat metabolism has not been thoroughly elucidated. In this study, miRNA-Seq was used to identify miRNAs in the liver tissue of three Hu sheep (short/fat-tailed sheep) and three Tibetan sheep (short/thin-tailed sheep) to characterize the differences in fat metabolism of sheep. In our study, Hu sheep was in a control group, we identified 11 differentially expressed miRNAs (DE miRNAs), including six up-regulated miRNAs and five down-regulated miRNAs. Miranda and RNAhybrid were used to predict the target genes of DE miRNAs, obtaining 3,404 target genes. A total of 115 and 67 GO terms as well as 54 and 5 KEGG pathways were significantly (padj < 0.05) enriched for predicted 3,109 target genes of up-regulated and 295 target genes of down-regulated miRNAs, respectively. oar-miR-432 was one of the most up-regulated miRNAs between Hu sheep and Tibetan sheep. And SIRT1 is one of the potential target genes of oar-miR-432. Furthermore, functional validation using the dual-luciferase reporter assay indicated that the up-regulated miRNA; oar-miR-432 potentially targeted sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) expression. Then, the oar-miR-432 mimic transfected into preadipocytes resulted in inhibited expression of SIRT1. This is the first time reported that the expression of SIRT1 gene was regulated by oar-miR-432 in fat metabolism of sheep liver. These results could provide a meaningful theoretical basis for studying the fat metabolism of sheep.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaojuan Fei
- Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Meilin Jin
- Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Zehu Yuan
- Joint International Research Laboratory of Agriculture and Agri-Product Safety of Ministry of Education, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China
| | - Taotao Li
- Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Zengkui Lu
- Lanzhou Institute of Husbandry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou, China
| | - Huihua Wang
- Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Jian Lu
- National Animal Husbandry Service, Beijing, China
| | - Kai Quan
- College of Animals Science and Technology, Henan University of Animal Husbandry and Economy, Zhengzhou, China
| | - Junxiang Yang
- Gansu Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, Pingliang, China
| | - Maochang He
- Gansu Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, Pingliang, China
| | - Tingpu Wang
- College of Bioengineering and Biotechnology, TianShui Normal University, Tianshui, China
| | - Yuqin Wang
- College of Animals Science and Technology, Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang, China
- *Correspondence: Caihong Wei, ; Yuqin Wang,
| | - Caihong Wei
- Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China
- *Correspondence: Caihong Wei, ; Yuqin Wang,
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Whole-body adipose tissue multi-omic analyses in sheep reveal molecular mechanisms underlying local adaptation to extreme environments. Commun Biol 2023; 6:159. [PMID: 36755107 PMCID: PMC9908986 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-04523-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2022] [Accepted: 01/24/2023] [Indexed: 02/10/2023] Open
Abstract
The fat tail of sheep is an important organ that has evolved to adapt to extreme environments. However, the genetic mechanisms underlying the fat tail phenotype remain poorly understood. Here, we characterize transcriptome and lipidome profiles and morphological changes in 250 adipose tissues from two thin-tailed and three fat-tailed sheep populations in summer and winter. We implement whole-genome selective sweep tests to identify genetic variants related to fat-tails. We identify a set of functional genes that show differential expression in the tail fat of fat-tailed and thin-tailed sheep in summer and winter. These genes are significantly enriched in pathways, such as lipid metabolism, extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling, molecular transport, and inflammatory response. In contrast to thin-tailed sheep, tail fat from fat-tailed sheep show slighter changes in adipocyte size, ECM remodeling, and lipid metabolism, and had less inflammation in response to seasonal changes, indicating improved homeostasis. Whole-genome selective sweep tests identify genes involved in preadipocyte commitment (e.g., BMP2, PDGFD) and terminal adipogenic differentiation (e.g., VEGFA), which could contribute to enhanced adipocyte hyperplasia. Altogether, we establish a model of regulatory networks regulating adipose homeostasis in sheep tails. These findings improve our understanding of how adipose homeostasis is maintained, in response to extreme environments in animals.
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Kalds P, Zhou S, Gao Y, Cai B, Huang S, Chen Y, Wang X. Genetics of the phenotypic evolution in sheep: a molecular look at diversity-driving genes. Genet Sel Evol 2022; 54:61. [PMID: 36085023 PMCID: PMC9463822 DOI: 10.1186/s12711-022-00753-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/28/2022] [Accepted: 08/29/2022] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND After domestication, the evolution of phenotypically-varied sheep breeds has generated rich biodiversity. This wide phenotypic variation arises as a result of hidden genomic changes that range from a single nucleotide to several thousands of nucleotides. Thus, it is of interest and significance to reveal and understand the genomic changes underlying the phenotypic variation of sheep breeds in order to drive selection towards economically important traits. REVIEW Various traits contribute to the emergence of variation in sheep phenotypic characteristics, including coat color, horns, tail, wool, ears, udder, vertebrae, among others. The genes that determine most of these phenotypic traits have been investigated, which has generated knowledge regarding the genetic determinism of several agriculturally-relevant traits in sheep. In this review, we discuss the genomic knowledge that has emerged in the past few decades regarding the phenotypic traits in sheep, and our ultimate aim is to encourage its practical application in sheep breeding. In addition, in order to expand the current understanding of the sheep genome, we shed light on research gaps that require further investigation. CONCLUSIONS Although significant research efforts have been conducted in the past few decades, several aspects of the sheep genome remain unexplored. For the full utilization of the current knowledge of the sheep genome, a wide practical application is still required in order to boost sheep productive performance and contribute to the generation of improved sheep breeds. The accumulated knowledge on the sheep genome will help advance and strengthen sheep breeding programs to face future challenges in the sector, such as climate change, global human population growth, and the increasing demand for products of animal origin.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peter Kalds
- Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Shaanxi Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100 China
- Department of Animal and Poultry Production, Faculty of Environmental Agricultural Sciences, Arish University, El-Arish, 45511 Egypt
| | - Shiwei Zhou
- Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Shaanxi Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100 China
- College of Veterinary Medicine, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100 China
| | - Yawei Gao
- Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Shaanxi Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100 China
| | - Bei Cai
- Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Shaanxi Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100 China
| | - Shuhong Huang
- Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Shaanxi Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100 China
| | - Yulin Chen
- Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Shaanxi Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100 China
- International Joint Agriculture Research Center for Animal Bio-Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Yangling, 712100 China
| | - Xiaolong Wang
- Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Shaanxi Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100 China
- International Joint Agriculture Research Center for Animal Bio-Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Yangling, 712100 China
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