College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology for Agriculture, Yangling, 712100, China.
Institute of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, 221116, China.
Sci China Life Sci. 2018 Jul;61(7):826-835. doi: 10.1007/s11427-017-9205-1. Epub 2018 Jan 9.
Our previous work reported a relationship between FOXO1 mutations and growth of Qinchuan (QC) cattle. Here, we performed differential expression analysis of FOXO1 and its association analysis with growth traits in QC cattle. First, we measured the expression of the FOXO1 gene in nine tissues during three developmental stages. The results showed that FOXO1 was abundantly expressed in tissues of calves but was strongly repressed in adulthood, although there was significant transcription in skeletal muscle. FOXO1 expression showed gradual up-regulation during differentiation of primary bovine skeletal muscle cells. We also identified six SNPs of the bovine FOXO1 gene by sequencing DNA pools of samples from 488 individuals, and association analysis indicated that five SNPs were significantly associated with some growth traits in the QC population. We further analyzed four haplotype combinations of the six SNPs and found significant correlation with body length (P<0.01). In conclusion, FOXO1 participates in bovine myocyte differentiation and expression, and may be a strong candidate as a gene that affects growth traits that could be exploited in a QC cattle breeding program. More generally, our data provide a new theoretical basis for QC beef breeding and beef quality improvement.
我们之前的工作报道了 FOXO1 突变与秦川牛（QC）生长之间的关系。在这里，我们对 FOXO1 进行了差异表达分析，并对其与 QC 牛生长性状的关联进行了分析。首先，我们测量了 FOXO1 基因在三个发育阶段的九个组织中的表达情况。结果表明，FOXO1 在小牛组织中大量表达，但在成年期受到强烈抑制，尽管在骨骼肌中存在显著的转录。FOXO1 表达在原代牛骨骼肌细胞分化过程中逐渐上调。我们还通过对来自 488 个人的样本 DNA 池进行测序，鉴定了牛 FOXO1 基因的六个 SNP，关联分析表明，五个 SNP 与 QC 群体的一些生长性状显著相关。我们进一步分析了六个 SNP 的四个单倍型组合，发现与体长有显著相关性（P<0.01）。总之，FOXO1 参与牛肌细胞的分化和表达，可能是一个影响生长性状的候选基因，可用于 QC 牛的选育计划。更广泛地说，我们的数据为 QC 牛肉的选育和牛肉质量的提高提供了新的理论基础。
