Abstract
BackgroundLipids are a class of molecules that play an important role in cellular structure and metabolism in all cell types. In the last few decades, it has been reported that long-chain fatty acids (FAs) are involved in several biological functions from transcriptional regulation to physiological processes. Several fatty acids have been both positively and negatively implicated in different biological processes in skeletal muscle and other tissues. To gain insight into biological processes associated with fatty acid content in skeletal muscle, the aim of the present study was to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and functional pathways related to gene expression regulation associated with FA content in cattle.ResultsSkeletal muscle transcriptome analysis of 164 Nellore steers revealed no differentially expressed genes (DEGs, FDR 10%) for samples with extreme values for linoleic acid (LA) or stearic acid (SA), and only a few DEGs for eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 5 DEGs), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 4 DEGs) and palmitic acid (PA, 123 DEGs), while large numbers of DEGs were associated with oleic acid (OA, 1134 DEGs) and conjugated linoleic acid cis9 trans11 (CLA-c9t11, 872 DEGs). Functional annotation and functional enrichment from OA DEGs identified important genes, canonical pathways and upstream regulators such as SCD, PLIN5, UCP3, CPT1, CPT1B, oxidative phosphorylation mitochondrial dysfunction, PPARGC1A, and FOXO1. Two important genes associated with lipid metabolism, gene expression and cancer were identified as DEGs between animals with high and low CLA-c9t11, specifically, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and RNPS.ConclusionOnly two out of seven classes of molecules of FA studied were associated with large changes in the expression profile of skeletal muscle. OA and CLA-c9t11 content had significant effects on the expression level of genes related to important biological processes associated with oxidative phosphorylation, and cell growth, survival, and migration. These results contribute to our understanding of how some FAs modulate metabolism and may have protective health function.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-016-3306-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Lipids are a class of molecules that play an important role in cellular structure and metabolism in all cell types
Our study revealed that up regulation of stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) is associated with deposition of unsaturated Fatty acid (FA) and that increased levels of oleic acid (OA) and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) are associated with expression of genes that have protective function associated with important human diseases
When ranked by fatty acids content in skeletal muscle, the statistical test of means performed between the high (H) and low (L) groups according to FA had significant differences (p-value < 0.05) for OA, palmitic acid (PA), stearic acid (SA), CLA-c9t11, linoleic acid (LA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), but no difference in Intramuscular fat (IMF) content or backfat thickness (Additional file 2)
Summary
Lipids are a class of molecules that play an important role in cellular structure and metabolism in all cell types. Lipids are a class of molecules present in all cell types They contribute to cellular structure, energy storage and several biological functions from transcriptional regulation to physiological processes [1]. Meat has high nutritional value and is an important source of unsaturated fatty acids such as oleic acid (OA) and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which have beneficial effects on human health [7]. There is a need to improve the nutritional value of meat and better understand the biological and molecular processes associated with fatty acid composition in skeletal muscle
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