Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2025, Vol. 56 ›› Issue (12): 6130-6144.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2025.12.017

• ANIMAL GENETICS AND BREEDING • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Study on Function of CTCF Regulating the Differentiation of Ovine Preadipocytes

QIAO Liying1,2, XU Changsong1,2, ZHANG Li1,2, DING Yi2,3, PAN Yangyang1,2, YANG Kaijie1,2, LIU Jianhua1,2, LIU Wenzhong1,2,3*   

  1. 1. College of Animal Science, Shanxi Agricultural University, Taigu 030801, China;
    2. Shanxi Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics Resource Utilization and Breeding, Taigu 030801, China;
    3. College of Agricultural Standardization, Shanxi Agricultural University, Taigu 030801, China
  • Received:2025-07-16 Published:2025-12-24

Abstract: This study aimed to reveal the regulating role of CTCF in the differentiation of ovine preadipocytes and its regulatory mechanism. In this study, adipose tissues from different parts of 4 8-month-old Guangling Large-tailed sheep were collected, and the expression level of CTCF was detected by quantitative real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR). Primary preadipocytes were isolated from 1 healthy 3-day-old Guangling Large-tailed sheep. CTCF gene was overexpressed or interfered in preadipocytes, with 3 replicates set for each treatment group. The regulatory effect of CTCF gene on the differentiation of sheep preadipocytes was detected using qRT-PCR, Western blotting and Oil Red O staining techniques. On this basis, transcriptomic sequencing analysis on sheep preadipocytes with CTCF overexpression was performed to explore the molecular mechanisms by which CTCF regulates lipid metabolism-related signaling pathways. The results showed that the mRNA expression of CTCF gene in the tail adipose of Guangling Large-tailed sheep was significantly higher than that in the perirenal and subcutaneous adipose tissues (P<0.05). After overexpression of CTCF, the expression level of adipogenic marker genes was significantly increased (P<0.05), and the amount of intracellular lipid droplets was increased. The opposite was true when the CTCF is interfered with. Transcriptome results showed that there were 1 079 differentially expressed genes between two groups. These differentially expressed genes were enriched in several pathways related to fat metabolism, including the sphingolipid signaling pathway, the FoxO signaling pathway, and the AMPK signaling pathway. Candidate genes affecting fat metabolism, such as CCND2, ITGA7, BRCA1, LAMA5, and CCNE2, were screened out. In summary, this study results shows that CTCF can promote the differentiation of sheep preadipocytes, and reveals the related pathways and candidate genes affecting CTCF-mediated fat metabolism.

Key words: sheep, CTCF gene, preadipocytes, differentiation, transcriptome sequencing

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