Transcriptomic profile of leg muscle during early growth and development in Haiyang yellow chicken

Abstract

Skeletal muscle growth and development from embryo to adult consists of a series of carefully regulated changes in gene expression. This study aimed to identify candidate genes involved in chicken growth and development and to investigate the potential regulatory mechanisms of early growth in Haiyang yellow chicken. RNA sequencing was used to compare the transcriptomes of chicken muscle tissues at four developmental stages. In total, 6150 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mo>|</mml:mo></mml:math> fold change <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mo>|</mml:mo></mml:math> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mo>≥</mml:mo></mml:math> 2; false discovery rate (FDR) <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mo>≤</mml:mo></mml:math> 0.05) were detected by pairwise comparison in female chickens. Functional analysis showed that the DEGs were mainly involved in the processes of muscle growth and development and cell differentiation. Many of the DEGs, such as <i>MSTN</i>, <i>MYOD1</i>, <i>MYF6</i>, <i>MYF5</i>, and <i>IGF1</i>, were related to chicken growth and development. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis showed that the DEGs were significantly enriched in four pathways related to growth and development: extracellular matrix (ECM)-receptor interaction, focal adhesion, tight junction, and insulin signalling pathways. A total of 42 DEGs assigned to these pathways are potential candidate genes for inducing the differences in growth among the four development stages, such as <i>MYH1A</i>, <i>EGF</i>, <i>MYLK2</i>, <i>MYLK4</i>, and <i>LAMB3</i>. This study identified a range of genes and several pathways that may be involved in regulating early growth.