High-throughput analysis of CircRNA in cows with naturally infected Staphylococcus aureus mammary gland

Abstract

Circular RNAs (CircRNA) are a special type of non-coding RNA molecule with a closed ring structure and are not affected by RNA exonucases. It has stable expression, is not easy to degrade, and exists in most eukaryotes. However, circRNA regulation of cow mastitis has not been widely recognized. Mammary epithelial tissues were collected from healthy Holstein cows (HCN) and mastitis Holstein cows (HCU). RNA sequencing (RNA SEQ) was performed for the differentially expressed circRNAs, and analysis results showed that 19 differentially expressed circRNAs were identified in HCN and HCU, among which 6 circRNAs were up-regulated and 13 circRNAs were down-regulated. We randomly selected nine circRNAs for Q-PCR verification, and the results showed consistent expression. Three circRNAs: circRNA2860, circRNA5323 and circRNA4027 were confirmed to be significantly differentially expressed circRNAs in cow mastitis. Also, their host genes TRPS1, SLC12A2 and MYH11 might be directly or indirectly play a role in cow mastitis. Furthermore, RNA polymerase transcription factor binding and tight junction are most enriched in GO and KEGG pathways, respectively. In addition, the regulatory network of circRNA-miRNA has been inferred from a bioinformatics perspective, which may help to understand the underlying molecular mechanism of circRNAs involved in regulating mastitis in cows.

Keywords:

• circRNA
• cow mastitis
• HCN
• HCU
• circRNA-miRNA

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the teachers and students of Shenyang Agricultural University in the technical help, including instruments and equipment and their related experimental materials, collaborative experimental work, to provide useful inspiration, suggestions, guidance, review, undertake some auxiliary work, etc.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All animals experiments used in this study were conducted in accordance with the guidelines of the Laboratory Animal Management Committee of Shenyang Agricultural University.

Consent for publication

The author agrees to publish.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

Our scientific research was financially aided by one projects： Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China: Genetic trajectory and expression localization of key genes of cashmere fineness by multiomics, Project No. 2021M693859.