Abstract
BackgroundMyogenic Differentiation 1 (MyoD) is a crucial master switch in regulating muscle-specific gene transcription. Forced expression of myoD is equipped to induce several cell lineages into myoblast, which then differentiate and fuse into myotube. Pig is one of the most significant livestock supplying meat, and has been classified into lean, fat and miniature pig breeds. However, the mechanisms underlying muscle mass variation among different pig breeds have remained unclear. Considering the important effect of MyoD on muscle development, it remains to be investigated whether the difference in muscle mass is caused by its single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) which are the major differences among pig breeds at DNA level.ResultsIn this study, we identified the locations of porcine myoD regulatory regions including proximal regulatory region (PRR), distal regulatory region (DRR), and core enhancer (CE) region. There are 8 SNPs in the regulatory regions and 6 SNPs in gene body region, which were identified from lean, fat and miniature pig populations. However, these SNPs have no effects on its temporal expression and transcriptional activity which might lead to the distinction in postnatal muscle mass. In addition, overexpression of myoD clones across from amphibious to mammals including xenopus tropicalis, chicken, mouse and pig whose gene identities vary from 68 to 84%, could promote myogenesis in NIH3T3 fibroblasts cells.ConclusionsThese results proved that myoD nucleotide variations from different pig populations have no effect on muscle mass, suggesting that the function of myoD is highly conserved not only among different pig breeds, but also across different species. Thus, it would be futile to discover SNPs affecting muscle mass in pig populations with normal muscle development.
Highlights
Myogenic Differentiation 1 (MyoD) is a crucial master switch in regulating muscle-specific gene transcription
Ding et al BMC Genetics (2019) 20:72 to core enhancer (CE) and distal regulatory region (DRR) enhancers can promote chromatin accessibility and RNA polymerase II recruitment at myoD and Myogenin loci, respectively [10,11,12]. In this case, is the difference in muscle mass among different pig breeds related to the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in myoD gene? we obtained myoD SNPs in its regulatory regions and gene body by resequencing, and analyzed them to explore whether these SNPs caused alteration in muscle mass in pigs
Depending on the CE, DRR and proximal regulatory region (PRR) of human and mouse myoD reported in documents [13,14,15], we identified the locations of porcine myoD CE regions (Fig. 1a), DRR (Fig. 1b) and PRR (Fig. 1c) by comparing nucleotide sequence similarities using BLAST
Summary
Myogenic Differentiation 1 (MyoD) is a crucial master switch in regulating muscle-specific gene transcription. Numerous researches on mechanisms of skeletal muscle development have been reported, and many genes regulating myogenesis have been found [1,2,3]. Ding et al BMC Genetics (2019) 20:72 to CE and DRR enhancers can promote chromatin accessibility and RNA polymerase II recruitment at myoD and Myogenin loci, respectively [10,11,12]. In this case, is the difference in muscle mass among different pig breeds related to the SNPs in myoD gene? This study helps us to better understand the mechanisms of different muscle mass among pigs, and provides new clues to study these mechanisms in the future
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