Comparative Transcriptome Profiling of mRNA and lncRNA of Ovaries in High and Low Egg Production Performance in Domestic Pigeons (Columba livia).

Haiguang Mao,Haiyue Cao,Ningying Xu,Xiaoting Zou,Zhaozheng Yin,Xinyang Dong,Xiuli Xu

doi:10.3389/fgene.2021.571325

Abstract

Egg production performance is one of the most important economic traits in pigeon industry. However, little is known regarding how egg production performance is regulated by long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in pigeons. To evaluate the lncRNAs and mRNAs in ovaries associated with egg production performance in domestic pigeons, high-throughput RNA sequencing of ovaries between high and low egg production performance groups were performed and analyzed in this study. A total of 34,346 mRNAs and 24,601 lncRNAs were identified, including 14,525 known lncRNAs and 10,076 novel lncRNAs, of which 811 mRNAs and 148 lncRNAs (P < 0.05) were significantly differentially expressed (DE) between the groups of high and low egg production performance. GO and KEGG annotation analysis indicated that the target genes of DE lncRNAs and DE mRNAs were related to cell differentiation, ATP binding and methylation. Moreover, we found that FOXK2, a target gene of lncRNA MSTRG.7894.4, was involved in regulating estrogen receptors. Our study provided a catalog of lncRNAs and mRNAs associated with egg production performance, and they deserve further study to deepen the understanding of biological processes in the ovaries of pigeons.

Highlights

Egg production performance has been one of the most important economic traits in poultry industry because of the desirable nutritional content of eggs in diets of humans (Du et al, 2020)
107892662, 94143316, and 99299092 raw reads were obtained for the group of high egg production performance (HP1, HP2, and HP3); 97258276, 101854132 and 106783540 raw reads were obtained for the group low egg production performance (LP1, LP2, and LP3)
Ovary development and egg production are complex biological processes, which are controlled by highly well-coordinated gene regulation, including coding and non-coding RNAs (Ren et al, 2017; Liu et al, 2018)

Summary

Introduction

Egg production performance has been one of the most important economic traits in poultry industry because of the desirable nutritional content of eggs in diets of humans (Du et al, 2020). The continually growing human population leads to an increasing demand for animal products. Animal production, including egg production, should be increased to meet mRNA and LncRNA in Ovaries the consumption needs of the growing human population (Huang et al, 2012). Egg production of poultry mainly depends on the reproductive performance, which is a relatively low heritability trait. It is of great significance to study the regulatory mechanisms of reproduction in ovaries of the pigeon to improve their egg production performance

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Conclusion