Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2024, Vol. 55 ›› Issue (2): 607-618.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2024.02.018

• ANIMAL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND REPRODUCTION • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Mining the Molecular Mechanism of Exogenous Melatonin Affecting the Development of Mink Ovary Based on Transcriptome Data

GAO Yawei, PENG Di, SUN Zhaoyang, YAN Ziyue, CUI Kai*, MA Zefang*   

  1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao 266109, China
  • Received:2023-07-13 Online:2024-02-23 Published:2024-02-27

Abstract: The study aimed to explore the molecular mechanism of exogenous melatonin (MLT) on mink ovarian development. In this study,200 female white and healthy 3 months old minks with similar body weight were selected. They were divided into experimental groups and control groups. The individuals in experimental group was implanted with an implant containing 18 mg·grain-1 MLT, while the individuals in control group was implanted with an empty implant without MLT. When the minks were in preparation for breeding, the ovaries of 4 minks in the experimental group and 4 minks in the control group were randomly collected.Then the total RNA was extracted by the Trizol method, and the cDNA library was constructed. The Illumina platform was used for sequencing and bioinformatics analysis and differentially expressed genes screening, and GO functional annotation analysis and KEGG analysis of differentially expressed genes were performed to find out the candidate genes and metabolic pathways related to MLT regulating ovarian development.To further verify the reliability of sequencing data, 6 differentially expressed genes were randomly selected for qPCR verification. The transcriptome results showed that both the experimental and the control groups had more than 120 000 SNP sites, and the SNP sites both were predominantly found in the gene region. The SNP mutation types of conversion were more than transversion and heterozygous in both groups. The number of SE events in the experimental group was the largest. A total of 9 631 new genes was obtained in this study, of which 1 323 and 1 317 new genes were annotated respectively in TrEMBL and NR databases, the annotation ratio was significantly higher than that of other data. The annotation ratio was significantly higher than that of other data. A total of 206 differentially expressed genes were found between the experimental group and the control group, including 36 unannotated genes, 69 up-regulated genes, and 137 down-regulated genes. GO functional enrichment showed that a total of 7 differentially expressed genes were enriched in the reproductive process. KEGG pathway enrichment results showed that a total of 7 differential genes was enriched in 5 pathways related to reproduction. Based on the results of GO functional classification and KEGG pathway annotation analysis, a total of 4 regulatory genes related to MLT affecting ovarian development were screened, all of which were up-regulated genes, including KRT19, GSTT1,ALAS1 and NR4A1. In this study, we performed transcriptome analysis of mink ovaries with or without MLT implantation during the pre-mating stage and found that MLT may promote ovarian development by regulating KRT19, GSTT1, ALAS1, and NR4A1.The results provide a theoretical basis for mink breeding work.

Key words: mink, melatonin, transcriptome, ovarian development, differentially expressed genes

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