Hao Zhiqiang, Xu Lulu, Zhao Li, He Jianping, Li Guanglin, Li Jingang
College of Life Science, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, China.
PeerJ. 2021 Apr 22;9:e11166. doi: 10.7717/peerj.11166. eCollection 2021.
Hypoxia can induce cell damage, inflammation, carcinogenesis, and inhibit liver regeneration in non-adapted species. Because of their excellent hypoxia adaptation features, subterranean rodents have been widely studied to clarify the mechanism of hypoxia adaptation. , which is a subterranean rodent found in China, can survive for more than 10 h under 4% O without observable injury, while rats can survive for less than 6 h under the same conditions. To explore the potential mechanism of hypoxia responses in , we performed RNA-seq analysis of the liver in exposed to different oxygen levels (6.5% 6h, 10.5% 44h, and 21%). Based on the bioinformatics analysis, 39,439 unigenes were assembled, and 56.78% unigenes were annotated using public databases (Nr, GO, Swiss-Prot, KEGG, and Pfam). In total, 725 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in the response to hypoxia; six with important functions were validated by qPCR. Those DEGs were mainly involved in processes related to lipid metabolism, steroid catabolism, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, and the AMPK and PPAR signaling pathway. By analyzing the expression patterns of important genes related to energy associated metabolism under hypoxia, we found that fatty acid oxidation and gluconeogenesis were increased, while protein synthesis and fatty acid synthesis were decreased. Furthermore, the upregulated expression of specific genes with anti-apoptosis or anti-oxidation functions under hypoxia may contribute to the mechanism by which tolerates hypoxia. Our results provide an understanding of the response to hypoxia in , and have potential value for biomedical studies.
缺氧可诱导细胞损伤、炎症和致癌作用，并抑制非适应性物种的肝脏再生。由于具有出色的缺氧适应特性，地下啮齿动物已被广泛研究以阐明缺氧适应机制。中华竹鼠是在中国发现的一种地下啮齿动物，在4%氧气浓度下可存活超过10小时而无明显损伤，而大鼠在相同条件下存活时间不到6小时。为了探索中华竹鼠缺氧反应的潜在机制，我们对暴露于不同氧气水平（6.5% 6小时、10.5% 44小时和21%）的中华竹鼠肝脏进行了RNA测序分析。基于生物信息学分析，共组装了39439个单基因，其中56.78%的单基因通过公共数据库（Nr、GO、Swiss-Prot、KEGG和Pfam）进行了注释。总共鉴定出725个缺氧反应差异表达基因（DEG）；通过qPCR验证了6个具有重要功能的基因。这些DEG主要参与与脂质代谢、类固醇分解代谢、糖酵解/糖异生以及AMPK和PPAR信号通路相关的过程。通过分析缺氧条件下与能量相关代谢的重要基因的表达模式，我们发现脂肪酸氧化和糖异生增加，而蛋白质合成和脂肪酸合成减少。此外，缺氧条件下具有抗凋亡或抗氧化功能的特定基因的上调表达可能有助于中华竹鼠耐受缺氧的机制。我们的结果有助于了解中华竹鼠对缺氧的反应，对生物医学研究具有潜在价值。
