Nguyen Loan T, Reverter Antonio, Cánovas Angela, Venus Bronwyn, Anderson Stephen T, Islas-Trejo Alma, Dias Marina M, Crawford Natalie F, Lehnert Sigrid A, Medrano Juan F, Thomas Milt G, Moore Stephen S, Fortes Marina R S
School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia.
Faculty of Biotechnology, Vietnam National University of Agriculture, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Front Genet. 2018 Mar 20;9:87. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2018.00087. eCollection 2018.
The liver plays a central role in metabolism and produces important hormones. Hepatic estrogen receptors and the release of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) are critical links between liver function and the reproductive system. However, the role of liver in pubertal development is not fully understood. To explore this question, we applied transcriptomic analyses to liver samples of pre- and post-pubertal Brahman heifers and identified differentially expressed (DE) genes and genes encoding transcription factors (TFs). Differential expression of genes suggests potential biological mechanisms and pathways linking liver function to puberty. The analyses identified 452 DE genes and 82 TF with significant contribution to differential gene expression by using a regulatory impact factor metric. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor was observed as the most down-regulated gene ( = 0.003) in post-pubertal heifers and we propose this gene influences pubertal development in Brahman heifers. Additionally, co-expression network analysis provided evidence for three TF as key regulators of liver function during pubertal development: the signal transducer and activator of transcription 6, PBX homeobox 2, and polybromo 1. Pathway enrichment analysis identified transforming growth factor-beta and Wnt signaling pathways as significant annotation terms for the list of DE genes and TF in the co-expression network. Molecular information regarding genes and pathways described in this work are important to further our understanding of puberty onset in Brahman heifers.
肝脏在新陈代谢中起核心作用，并产生重要激素。肝脏雌激素受体和胰岛素样生长因子1（IGF1）的释放是肝功能与生殖系统之间的关键联系。然而，肝脏在青春期发育中的作用尚未完全明确。为了探究这个问题，我们对青春期前和青春期后的婆罗门小母牛的肝脏样本进行了转录组分析，鉴定了差异表达（DE）基因和编码转录因子（TF）的基因。基因的差异表达提示了将肝功能与青春期联系起来的潜在生物学机制和途径。通过使用调控影响因子指标，分析确定了452个DE基因和82个对差异基因表达有显著贡献的TF。在青春期后的小母牛中，脑源性神经营养因子被观察到是下调最明显的基因（P = 0.003），我们认为该基因影响婆罗门小母牛的青春期发育。此外，共表达网络分析为三个TF作为青春期发育期间肝功能的关键调节因子提供了证据：信号转导和转录激活因子6、PBX同源框2和多溴蛋白1。通路富集分析确定转化生长因子-β和Wnt信号通路是共表达网络中DE基因和TF列表的重要注释术语。这项工作中描述的基因和通路的分子信息对于进一步了解婆罗门小母牛的青春期启动很重要。
