Abstract
Cartilage dysplasia is one of the important reasons for the weakness of pig limbs and hooves. Porcine rickets with weak limbs and hooves bring huge economic losses to the pig industry. However, research on the development of pig cartilage is lacking. This study investigated the key genes and molecular mechanisms involved in cartilage development via an RNA-seq technique. Samples of proximal tibia cartilage were collected from three normal piglets with 1 day, 14 days, and 28 days of age, respectively, and then these samples were divided into two comparison groups (1-day vs. 14-day group, 14-day vs. 28-day group). Through the transcriptome analysis, 108 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), such as FORL2, were obtained from 1-day vs. 14-day comparison group, and 3602 DEGs were obtained from 14-day vs. 28-day comparison group, including SOX9, BMP6, and MMP13. The gene ontology (GO) functional and KEGG pathway enrichment revealed that many functions of DEGs were related to bone development. The pathways of DEGs from Day 1 vs. Day 14 were mainly enriched in mineral absorption, but the DEGs of Day 14 vs. Day 28 were enriched in osteoclast differentiation. Then, the expression patterns of six candidate genes were verified via qPCR. In conclusion, candidate genes affecting cartilage development in Yorkshire pigs were obtained by transcriptome analysis, and the clues showed that Day 14 to Day 28 is a more active and extensive period in cartilage developments, which played a key role in revealing the molecular mechanism of pig cartilage development basis, also compensating for vacancies in cartilage research.
Highlights
In the modern large-scale pig industry, pig’s foot disease has become one of the most common and complex problems in pigs and occurs in pigs of all ages
Transcriptome Data Detection. e clean reads of the obtained proximal tibial cartilage tissue were compared with the reference genome of the pig (Supplementary Table 1), and the total number of reads and the number of reads of the single position alignment were obtained. e above results indicate that the quality of the sequencing data is high, which can be used for subsequent analysis. e R function was used to calculate the distance between the samples
It is indicated that the molecular regulation of cartilage development varies with development time. rough we analyzed the common di erential expression patterns in the two comparison groups and the changes in the expression levels of the selected candidate genes during the three periods, we found that Day 14 is in a relatively special time point, and it can even be said to be a turning point. erefore, based on the above results, we speculate that the process from Day 14 to Day 28 is a process of greater changes in cartilage development, which was not found in previous studies
Summary
In the modern large-scale pig industry, pig’s foot disease has become one of the most common and complex problems in pigs and occurs in pigs of all ages. Piglets are susceptible to sow injury or joint infection in the bed, causing foot and hoof disease, which affects the survival and growth rate of piglets during development. Leg and foot disease has become a major factor restricting the production, reproduction, and longevity of pigs, and it has caused a large number of elimination and economic losses in the pig industry. Erefore, further research on the pathogenesis and pathological mechanism of swine foot and hoof disease can help to improve limb and hoof problems and reduce economic losses.
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