Farm Animal Genetic Resources Exploration and Innovation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, 613000, China.
BMC Genomics. 2022 Feb 11;23(1):122. doi: 10.1186/s12864-022-08360-8.
Mammalian sex chromosomes provide dosage compensation, but avian lack a global mechanism of dose compensation. Herein, we employed nanopore sequencing to investigate the genetic basis of gene expression and gene dosage effects in avian Z chromosomes at the posttranscriptional level.
In this study, the gonad and head skin of female and male duck samples (n = 4) were collected at 16 weeks of age for Oxford nanopore sequencing. Our results revealed a dosage effect and local regulation of duck Z chromosome gene expression. Additionally, AS and APA achieve tissue-specific gene expression, and male-biased lncRNA regulates its Z-linked target genes, with a positive regulatory role for gene dosage effects on the duck Z chromosome. In addition, GO enrichment and KEGG pathway analysis showed that the dosage effects of Z-linked genes were mainly associated with the cellular response to hormone stimulus, melanin biosynthetic, metabolic pathways, and melanogenesis, resulting in sex differences.
Our data suggested that post transcriptional regulation (AS, APA and lncRNA) has a potential impact on the gene expression effects of avian Z chromosomes. Our study provides a new view of gene regulation underlying the dose effects in avian Z chromosomes at the RNA post transcriptional level.
哺乳动物性染色体提供了剂量补偿，但鸟类缺乏全局剂量补偿机制。在此，我们采用纳米孔测序技术在转录后水平研究了禽类 Z 染色体基因表达和基因剂量效应的遗传基础。
在这项研究中，我们在 16 周龄时采集了雌性和雄性鸭样本（n=4）的性腺和头部皮肤进行牛津纳米孔测序。结果表明，鸭 Z 染色体的基因表达存在剂量效应和局部调控。此外，可变剪接（AS）和选择性剪接（APA）实现了组织特异性基因表达，雄性偏倚的长非编码 RNA（lncRNA）调控其 Z 连锁靶基因，基因剂量效应对鸭 Z 染色体具有正向调节作用。此外，GO 富集和 KEGG 通路分析表明，Z 连锁基因的剂量效应主要与细胞对激素刺激的反应、黑色素生物合成、代谢途径和黑色素生成有关，从而导致性别差异。
我们的数据表明，转录后调控（AS、APA 和 lncRNA）可能对禽类 Z 染色体的基因表达效应产生影响。本研究从 RNA 转录后水平为禽类 Z 染色体剂量效应的基因调控提供了新的视角。
