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. 2016 Apr;47(2):174-80.
doi: 10.1111/age.12394. Epub 2015 Dec 22.

Differential expression of genes in milk of dairy cattle during lactation

Jie Yang  1 , Jicai Jiang  1 , Xuan Liu  1 , Haifei Wang  1 , Gang Guo  2 , Qin Zhang  1 , Li Jiang  1
Affiliations

Differential expression of genes in milk of dairy cattle during lactation

Jie Yang et al. Anim Genet. 2016 Apr.

Abstract

The milk fat globule (MFG) is one of the most representative of mammary gland tissues and can be utilized to study gene expression of lactating cows during lactation. In this study, RNA-seq technology was employed to detect differential expression of genes in MFGs at day 10 and day 70 after calving between two groups of cows with extremely high (H group) and low (L group) 305-day milk yield, milk fat yield and milk protein yield. In total, 1232, 81, 429 and 178 significantly differentially expressed genes (false discovery rate q < 0.05) were detected between H10 and L10, H70 and L70, H10 and H70, and L10 and L70 respectively. Gene Ontology enrichment and pathway analysis revealed that these differentially expressed genes were enriched in biological processes involved in mammary gland development, protein and lipid metabolism process, signal transduction, cellular process, differentiation and immune function. Among these differentially expressed genes, 178 (H10 vs. L10), 4 (H70 vs. L70), 68 (H10 vs. H70) and 22 (L10 vs. L70) were found to be located within previously reported QTL regions for milk production traits. Based on these results, some promising candidate genes for milk production traits in dairy cattle were suggested.

Keywords: RNA sequencing; differentially expressed genes; milk fat globules; milk production traits.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Differential expression of genes between the high (H) and low (L) groups. FPKM values under (above) the dotted line represent higher expression in the L(H) group. (a) H10 vs. L10; (b): H70 vs. L70.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Differential expression of genes between the early (days in milk = 10) and peak (days in milk = 70) stage of lactation. FPKM values under (above) the dotted line represent higher expression at the early (peak) stage of lactation. (a) H10 vs. H70; (b) L10 vs. L70.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Overlapping of differentially expressed genes from the four comparisons (H10 vs. L10, H70 vs. L70, H10 vs. H70 and L10 vs. L70).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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