ABSTRACT
1. The liver of chickens is a dominant lipid biosynthetic tissue and plays a vital role in fat deposition, particularly in the abdomen. To determine the molecular mechanisms involved in its lipid metabolism, the livers of chickens with high (H) or low (L) abdominal fat content were sampled and sequencing on long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), messenger RNA (mRNA) and small RNA (microRNA) was performed.
2. In total, 351 expressed protein-coding genes for long non-coding RNA (DEL; 201 upregulated and 150 downregulated), 400 differentially expressed genes (DEG; 223 upregulated and 177 downregulated) and 10 differentially expressed miRNA (DEM; four upregulated and six downregulated) were identified between the two groups. Multiple potential signalling pathways related to lipogenesis and lipid metabolism were identified via pathway enrichment analysis. In addition, 173 lncRNA – miRNA – mRNA interaction regulatory networks were identified, including 30 lncRNA, 27 mRNA and seven miRNA.
3. These networks may help regulate lipid metabolism and fat deposition. Five promising candidate genes and two lncRNA may play important roles in the regulation of adipogenesis and lipid metabolism in chickens.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the Sichuan Science and Technology Program (2022YFN0039); Scientific Research Project of Leshan Normal University (DGZZ202002, LZD008, 22HX00051). The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in NCBI Sequence Read Archive at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra, reference number PRJNA1022831 and PRJNA1022840.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Supplementary Material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00071668.2024.2319779