Inheritance patterns of the transcriptome in hybrid chickens and their parents revealed by expression analysis

Hongchang Gu,Xin Qi,Zhihua Jiang,Changsheng Nie,Qiong Wang,Yaxiong Jia,Xinghua Li,Lujiang Qu,Junying Li,Zebin Zhang

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-42019-x

Abstract

Although many phenotypic traits of chickens have been well documented, the genetic patterns of gene expression levels in chickens remain to be determined. In the present study, we crossed two chicken breeds, White Leghorn (WL) and Cornish (Cor), which have been selected for egg and meat production, respectively, for a few hundred years. We evaluated transcriptome abundance in the brain, muscle, and liver from the day-old progenies of pure-bred WL and Cor, and the hybrids of these two breeds, by RNA-Seq in order to determine the inheritance patterns of gene expression. Comparison among expression levels in the different groups revealed that most of the genes showed conserved expression patterns in all three examined tissues and that brain had the highest number of conserved genes, which indicates that conserved genes are predominantly important compared to others. On the basis of allelic expression analysis, in addition to the conserved genes, we identified the extensive presence of additive, dominant (Cor dominant and WL dominant), over-dominant, and under-dominant genes in all three tissues in hybrids. Our study is the first to provide an overview of inheritance patterns of the transcriptome in layers and broilers, and we also provide insights into the genetics of chickens at the gene expression level.

Highlights

Many phenotypic traits of chickens have been well documented, the genetic patterns of gene expression levels in chickens remain to be determined
In recent animal genetic studies, a certain phenotype has been used as a starting point to study its mechanism, based on the laws of separation and combination proposed by Mendel[1]
Phenotypic differences between species are caused by genetic changes, these genetic differences are closely related to the expression and function of gene products[7]

Summary

Introduction

Many phenotypic traits of chickens have been well documented, the genetic patterns of gene expression levels in chickens remain to be determined. Our study is the first to provide an overview of inheritance patterns of the transcriptome in layers and broilers, and we provide insights into the genetics of chickens at the gene expression level. At the DNA level, phenotype traits of chicken, such as earlobe colour[2] and polydactyly[3], have been investigated using different approaches such as genome-wide association studies and re-sequencing analysis. Genes and their allelic relationships that affect eggshell[4,5] and feather colour[6] have been characterised at the RNA level. At present, there has been relatively little analysis of the effects of hybridization on gene expression in chickens and other commercially bred animals

Methods

Results

Conclusion