Differential Transcriptome Analysis of Cervus elaphus songaricus and Cervus elaphus yarkandensis Reveals Candidate Genes for Antler Regeneration

Abstract

Antler is of high medicinal value as a traditional Chinese medicine and it has a high economic value. Both Cervus elaphus songaricus and Cervus elaphus yarkandensis are important species of Cervus elaphus yarkandensis in China, but they are different in the level of deer antlers production. So total RNA was extracted from frozen antler tissue and performed RNA-seq. Data from RNA-seq was disposed with multiple bioinformatics software. The expression of differential genes were evaluated by q-PCR. Based on the RNA-seq date of antlers, we obtained 385,712 unigenes by employing de novo assembly and then they were annotated in some databases, such as Nr, Swissprot, GO and KEGG. Combined with DGE technology, transcriptome differences between Cervus elaphus songaricus and Cervus elaphus yarkandensis were detected (>±2 Fold, P-value <0.05). There were altogether 20 up-regulated and 27 down-regulated genes identified, among which 7 (CYTB petB, COX7B, EPHX2, KCNQ2, CCLX, RP-S11e and RPS11) were mapped to 14 signaling pathways. The Cervus elaphus yarkandensis had higher metabolic levels, faster cell proliferation, and stronger immunity, which improved the yield of antler production. This comparative study of the antlers transcriptome between Cervus elaphus songaricus and Cervus elaphus yarkandensis identified some important differentially expressed genes and signaling pathways, which may explain the differences of two species antler regeneration and providebeneficial information for further understanding of the molecular mechanism of Cervus elaphus antlers production.