ACTA VETERINARIA ET ZOOTECHNICA SINICA ›› 2017, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (7): 1191-1201.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2017.07.003

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Temporal-Spatial Characteristics of FTO Gene Expression in Tibetan Chicken and Its Correlation with Intramuscular Fat Content

LIN Sen1,2, LIN Ya-qiu1, ZHU Jiang-jiang2, XU Ya-ou1, WANG Yong1,2*   

  1. 1. College of Life Science and Technology, Southwest Minzu University, Chengdu 610041, China;
    2. Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province for Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Animal Genetic Resource Reservation and Exploitation, Chengdu 610041, China
  • Received:2017-02-23 Online:2017-07-23 Published:2017-07-23

Abstract:

The aim of this study was to obtain the sequence of FTO gene of Tibetan chicken, analyze its sequence by bioinformatics, clarify its temporal-spatial expression characteristics, and reveal the relationship between the expression level of FTO gene and intramuscular fat content(IMF) at different developmental stages. Healthy Tibetan chickens in various ages(1-210 days of age) were selected, the tissue samples of heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, breast muscle, leg muscle and subcutaneous fat were collected for the total RNA extraction. The Reverse Transcription PCR(RT-PCR) was used to clone Tibetan chicken FTO gene sequence, the real-time quantitative PCR(qPCR) was used to detect the expression level of FTO gene in different tissues and developmental stages, and the correlation between the FTO mRNA expression and intramuscular fat content was analyzed. The results showed that the sequence of Tibetan chicken FTO gene was 1 585 bp (GenBank accession number:KY366175), containing 1 524 bp CDS, 35 bp 5' UTR and 26 bp 3' UTR, encoding 507 amino acids with a N-terminal domain and a C-terminal domain. There were 6 amino acid mutations between Tibetan chicken and Gallus gallus FTO amino acid sequences. FTO gene of Tibetan chicken was widely expressed in different tissues. The expression level of FTO gene was the highest in spleen, which was significantly higher than other tissues (P <0.01). FTO gene also kept a high expression level in adipose and lung tissues. The expression pattern of Tibetan chicken FTO gene in breast muscle and leg muscle were different, the expression level in breast muscle decreased gradually with the growth of Tibetan chicken, while in the leg muscle, the expression level increased first and then descended with the increasing age. The expression levels of Tibetan chickenFTO gene in different muscle tissues and different developmental stages presented diverse relationships with IMF content. The expression level of FTO in breast muscle of Tibetan chicken was negatively correlated with IMF content, and this correlation in hens was significantly stronger (P <0.05). In leg muscle, the expression level of FTO gene in cocks was positively correlated with IMF content(in period of 119-210 days, r=0.601, P <0.05), while in hens this relationship was opposite. The results suggest that FTO gene may play an important role in intramuscular fat deposition during the growth and development stage of Tibetan chicken. These results will facilitate the research on the structure and function of FTO gene in Tibetan chickens.

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