College of Animal Science and Technology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, 225009, China.
College of Animal Science, Shanxi Agricultural University, Taiyuan, 030032, China.
BMC Genomics. 2022 Apr 28;23(1):330. doi: 10.1186/s12864-022-08588-4.
Chicken provides humans with a large amount of animal protein every year, in which skeletal muscle plays a leading role. The embryonic skeletal muscle development determines the number of muscle fibers and will affect the muscle production of chickens. CircRNAs are involved in a variety of important biological processes, including muscle development. However, studies on circRNAs in the chicken embryo muscle development are still lacking.
In the study, we collected chicken leg muscles at 14 and 20-day embryo ages both in the fast- and slow-growing groups for RNA-seq. We identified 245 and 440 differentially expressed (DE) circRNAs in the comparison group F14vsF20 and S14vsS20 respectively. GO enrichment analysis for the host genes of DE circRNAs showed that biological process (BP) terms in the top 20 related to growth in F14vsF20 were found such as positive regulation of transcription involved in G1/S phase of mitotic cell cycle, multicellular organismal macromolecule metabolic process, and multicellular organismal metabolic process. In group S14vsS20, we also found some BP terms associated with growth in the top 20 including actomyosin structure organization, actin cytoskeleton organization and myofibril assembly. A total of 7 significantly enriched pathways were obtained, containing Adherens junction and Tight junction. Further analysis of those pathways found three crucial host genes MYH9, YBX3, IGF1R in both fast- and slow-growing groups, three important host genes CTNNA3, AFDN and CREBBP only in the fast-growing group, and six host genes FGFR2, ACTN2, COL1A2, CDC42, DOCK1 and MYL3 only in the slow-growing group. In addition, circRNA-miRNA network also revealed some key regulation pairs such as novel_circ_0007646-miR-1625-5p, novel_circ_0007646-miR-1680-5p, novel_circ_0008913-miR-148b-5p, novel_circ_0008906-miR-148b-5p and novel_circ_0001640-miR-1759-3p.
Comprehensive analysis of circRNAs and their targets would contribute to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms in poultry skeletal muscle and it also plays an important guiding role in the next research.
鸡每年为人类提供大量的动物蛋白，其中骨骼肌起着主导作用。胚胎骨骼肌的发育决定了肌纤维的数量，并会影响鸡的肌肉产量。circRNAs 参与了多种重要的生物学过程，包括肌肉发育。然而，关于鸡胚胎肌肉发育中 circRNAs 的研究仍然缺乏。
在这项研究中，我们分别在快生长组和慢生长组的 14 日龄和 20 日龄鸡胚胎的腿肌中采集了 RNA-seq 样本。我们在 F14vsF20 和 S14vsS20 两个比较组中分别鉴定到 245 个和 440 个差异表达的 circRNAs。差异表达 circRNAs 的宿主基因的 GO 富集分析显示，在 F14vsF20 中，与生长相关的前 20 个生物学过程（BP）术语包括有丝分裂细胞周期 G1/S 期的转录的正调控、多细胞生物体大分子代谢过程和多细胞生物体代谢过程。在 S14vsS20 组中，我们还发现了一些与生长相关的 BP 术语，包括肌球蛋白结构组织、肌动蛋白细胞骨架组织和肌原纤维组装。总共获得了 7 个显著富集的通路，包含黏着连接和紧密连接。对这些通路的进一步分析发现，在快生长组和慢生长组中都有三个关键的宿主基因 MYH9、YBX3 和 IGF1R，在快生长组中还有三个重要的宿主基因 CTNNA3、AFDN 和 CREBBP，而在慢生长组中则有六个宿主基因 FGFR2、ACTN2、COL1A2、CDC42、DOCK1 和 MYL3。此外，circRNA-miRNA 网络还揭示了一些关键的调控对，如 novel_circ_0007646-miR-1625-5p、novel_circ_0007646-miR-1680-5p、novel_circ_0008913-miR-148b-5p、novel_circ_0008906-miR-148b-5p 和 novel_circ_0001640-miR-1759-3p。
对 circRNAs 及其靶标的综合分析将有助于更好地理解家禽骨骼肌中的分子机制，对下一步的研究也具有重要的指导作用。
