Screening of genes coupled to heat response in Mongolian and Dorper sheep breeds

Abstract

Mongolian sheep and Dorper sheep as keystone sheep breed present excellent adaptability to the surroundings, but the heat-responsive genes of two sheep breeds are rarely explored, especially non-coding RNA gene. The three Mongolian sheep and three Dorper sheep were treated under heat condition, and the livers of six sheep were sampled and arranged to sequence. Using bioinformatics analysis to investigate RNA-seq data, 335 differentially expressed protein-coding genes and 65 long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) genes were emerged. In the liver of Mongolian sheep, 5 protein-coding genes relevant to heat response were inspected, including COMMD10, ABCA9, NIPAL1, APOA4 and LIN7A while 8 genes containing NUP62, PLIN2, ACACB, NIPAL1, EXO1, LGALS3, TRPM1 and TRPV2 were screened in liver of Dorper sheep. The biological effects of the 12 protein-coding genes were involved in heat shock protein binding, lipid homeostasis and storage, fatty acid oxidation, magnesium/calcium ions import, anti-oxidation and DNA repair. Among above heat response-centric genes, ABCA9 was predicted as target gene of significantly differential XLOC_476131. The selected 12 protein-coding genes and 1 lncRNA genes were considered to provide an understanding of how sheep positively respond to heat stress, and further to provide molecular evidence on heat-tolerance.