Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2022, Vol. 53 ›› Issue (10): 3421-3433.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2022.10.015

• ANIMAL GENETICS AND BREEDING • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Identification of Key Candidate Genes for Milk Fat Metabolism in Dairy Cows Based on Transcriptome Sequencing

WANG Chuanchuan, MU Tong, FENG Xiaofang, YU Baojun, ZHANG Juan, GU Yaling*   

  1. School of Agriculture, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China
  • Received:2022-03-10 Online:2022-10-23 Published:2022-10-26

Abstract: The aim of this study was to conduct in-depth analysis of mRNA expression profile data from transcriptome sequencing in bovine mammary epithelial cells (BMECs) of dairy cows with high and low milk fat percentage, and to identify key candidate genes affecting milk fat metabolism in dairy cows. Transcriptome sequencing of BMECs from Holstein dairy cows (4 cows in high and low milk fat percentage groups,respectively) was performed by Illumina PE150 method, and the differentially expressed genes were screened with P<0.05 and|log2FoldChange| ≥ 1.5. KOBAS website was used for functional enrichment analysis. Finally, the accuracy of the sequencing results and the tissue expression profiles of differentially expressed genes related to milk fat metabolism were analyzed by real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) technology. The results show that there were 578 differentially expressed genes between the high and low milk fat groups, including 332 differentially expressed up-regulated genes, 246 differentially expressed down-regulated genes. Functional enrichment analysis identified 366 significantly enriched GO items including biological process (BP), cellular component (CC) and molecular function (MF) (P<0.05). Among them, GO items closely related to lipid metabolism included long-chain fatty acid transport, positive regulation of adipocyte differentiation, mammary alveolar development, arachidonic acid binding, etc. The differential genes were significantly enriched in 47 KEGG pathways (P<0.05), and there were 15 pathways involved in lipid metabolism, including regulation of lipolysis in adipocytes, phospholipase D signaling pathway, Hippo signaling pathway, etc. Among them, ID2, PRKAA2, FABP4 and ADCY5 were the key candidate genes regulating milk lipid metabolism. Tissue expression profile analysis showed that the expression level of FABP4 was the highest in mammary gland tissue, and the expression levels of ID2, PRKAA2 and ADCY5 were also at a high level compared with other tissues. In this study, 4 important candidate genes affecting milk fat metabolism in dairy cows were screened, which provided an important theoretical basis for studying on the molecular regulation mechanism of milk fat metabolism in dairy cows in the future.

Key words: Holstein dairy cattle, transcriptome, differentially expressed genes, milk fat, tissue expression profiling

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