Key Laboratory of Animal (Poultry) Genetics Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China.
Key Laboratory of Animal (Poultry) Genetics Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China.
Poult Sci. 2024 Jul;103(7):103783. doi: 10.1016/j.psj.2024.103783. Epub 2024 Apr 20.
Heterosis has been widely utilized in chickens. The nonadditive inheritance of genes contributes to this biological phenomenon. However, the role of circRNAs played in the heterosis is poorly determined. In this study, we observed divergent heterosis for residual feed intake (RFI) between 2 crossbreds derived from a reciprocal cross between White Leghorns and Beijing You chickens. Then, circRNA landscape for 120 samples covering the hypothalamus, liver, duodenum mucosa and ovary were profiled to elucidate the regulatory mechanisms of heterosis. We detected that a small proportion of circRNAs (7.83-20.35%) were additively and non-additively expressed, in which non-additivity was a major inheritance of circRNAs in the crossbreds. Tissue-specific expression of circRNAs was prevalent across 4 tissues. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis revealed circRNA-mRNA co-expression modules associated with feed intake and RFI in the hypothalamus and liver, and the co-expressed genes were enriched in oxidative phosphorylation pathway. We further identified 8 nonadditive circRNAs highly correlated with 16 nonadditive genes regulating negative heterosis for RFI in the 2 tissues. Circ-ITSN2 was validated in the liver tissue for its significantly positive correlation with PGPEP1L. Moreover, the bioinformatic analysis indicated that candidate circRNAs might be functioned by binding the microRNAs and interacting with the RNA binding proteins. The integration of multi-tissue transcriptome firstly linked the association between tissue-specific circRNAs and the heterosis for feed intake and efficiency in chicken, which provide novel insights into the molecular mechanism underlying heterosis for feed efficiency. The validated circRNAs can act as potential biomarkers for predicting RFI and its heterosis.
杂种优势在鸡中得到了广泛应用。基因的非加性遗传导致了这种生物学现象。然而，circRNA 在杂种优势中的作用还没有得到很好的确定。在这项研究中，我们观察到了来自怀特莱公母鸡和北京油鸡的正反交杂种之间的残余采食量（RFI）的差异杂种优势。然后，我们对 120 个样本的 circRNA 图谱进行了分析，这些样本涵盖了下丘脑、肝脏、十二指肠黏膜和卵巢，以阐明杂种优势的调控机制。我们发现一小部分 circRNA（7.83-20.35%）表现出加性和非加性表达，其中非加性是杂种中 circRNA 的主要遗传方式。circRNA 在 4 种组织中的组织特异性表达普遍存在。加权基因共表达网络分析揭示了与下丘脑和肝脏中采食量和 RFI 相关的 circRNA-mRNA 共表达模块，并且共表达基因富集在氧化磷酸化途径中。我们进一步鉴定了 8 个与调节 RFI 负杂种优势的 16 个非加性基因高度相关的非加性 circRNA。circ-ITSN2 在肝脏组织中的验证表明，其与 PGPEP1L 呈显著正相关。此外，生物信息学分析表明，候选 circRNA 可能通过与 microRNA 结合和与 RNA 结合蛋白相互作用来发挥作用。多组织转录组的整合首次将组织特异性 circRNA 与鸡的采食量和效率杂种优势联系起来，为饲料效率杂种优势的分子机制提供了新的见解。验证的 circRNA 可以作为预测 RFI 及其杂种优势的潜在生物标志物。
