Blood transcriptome comparison between sexes and their function in 4-week Rhode Island red chickens

Abstract

Sex is a major biological factor in the development and physiology of a sexual reproductive organism, and its role in the growing process is needed to be investigated in various species. We compare blood transcriptome between 5 males and 5 females in 4-week-old Rhode Island Red chickens and perform functional annotation of differentially expressed genes (DEGs). The results are as follows. 141 and 109 DEGs were located in autosomes and sex chromosomes, respectively. The gene ontology (GO) terms are significantly ( p < 0.05) enriched, which were limb development, inner ear development, positive regulation of dendrite development, the KEGG pathway the TGF-beta signaling pathway, and melanogenesis ( p < 0.05). These pathways are related to morphological maintenance and growth of the tissues. In addition, the SMAD2W and the BMP5 were involved in the TGF-beta signaling pathway, and both play an important role in maintaining tissue development. The major DEGs related to the development of neurons and synapses include the up-regulated NRN1 , GDF10 , SLC1A1 , BMP5 , NBEA, and NRXN1 . Also, 7 DEGs were validated using RT-qPCR with high correlation ( r 2 = 0.74). In conclusion, the differential expression of blood tissue in the early growing chicken was enriched in TGF-beta signaling and related to the development of neurons and synapses including SMAD2W and BMP5 . These results suggest that blood in the early growing stage is differentially affected in tissue development, nervous system, and pigmentation by sex. For future research, experimental characterization of DEGs and a holistic investigation of various tissues and growth stages will be required.

Dietary exposure of the water flea Daphnia galeata to microcystin-LR

“…Short-read mRNA sequencing was performed on multiple individuals of D. galeata : 15 individuals each from the Et-OH treatment and Ctrl groups, and 14 from the MC-LR treatment group. For each experiment group, a paired-end library was generated using the TruSeq Stranded mRNA library kit (Illumina, USA) with an insert size of approximately 155 bp (Jung et al 2020 ; Kim et al 2022 ; Jeon et al 2023 ). The mRNA sequencing was conducted on the Novaseq6000 platform (Illumina, USA), generating 101 bp reads from both ends.…”