Transcriptional Features of Cattle Visceral and Subcutaneous Adipose Tissues: A Study of RNA-seq

Abstract

Visceral and subcutaneous are the two major types of bovine adipose tissues, and they show metabolic and functional differences according to their distribution, exploring the transcriptional features of visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissues is necessary. In the present study, we conducted RNA-seq analysis to compare the transcriptome between visceral (great omental) and subcutaneous (backfat) adipose tissues from Chinese Simmental cattle and validate them by qRT-PCR. We found that 5864 genes were differentially expressed between two tissues, including 2979 up-regulated and 2885 down-regulated in visceral adipose tissue. Functional analysis revealed a variety of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) involved in lipid metabolism and immune response processes. This may provide valuable information to further our understanding of the complexity of gene regulation governing the physiology of different fat depots. This work highlighted potential genes regulating lipid metabolism and immune responses; it may contribute to a better understanding of the metabolic and functional differences between visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissues.