Expression of fox-related genes in the skin follicles of Inner Mongolia cashmere goat

Abstract

Objective: This study investigated the expression of genes in cashmere goats at different periods of their fetal development.

Methods: Bioinformatics analysis was used to evaluate data obtained by transcriptome sequencing of fetus skin samples collected from Inner Mongolia cashmere goats on days 45, 55, and 65 of fetal age.

Results: We found that FoxN1, FoxE1, and FoxI3 genes of the Fox gene family were probably involved in the growth and development of the follicle and the formation of hair, which is consistent with previous findings. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction detecting system and Western blot analysis were employed to study the relative differentially expressed genes FoxN1, FoxE1, and FoxI3 in the body skin of cashmere goat fetuses and adult individuals.

Conclusion: This study provided new fundamental information for further investigation of the genes related to follicle development and exploration of their roles in hair follicle initiation, growth, and development.

Keywords: Cashmere Goat; FoxE1; FoxI3; FoxN1; Real-time Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction Detecting System; Western Blot.

Figure 1

Changeable process hair follicle morphogenesis of the Inner Mongolian cashmere goat in the fetal period [10]. (A) Fetal period of 55 day (400×); a, hair buds precursor. (B) Fetal period of 65 day (400×); a, growing hair bud; b, cap like structure of dermal fibroblasts. (C) Fetal period of 75 day (200×); SF, secondary follicle; PF, primary follicle. (D) Fetal period of 125 day (100×); DP, dermal papilla; Ma, hair matrix; CTS, connective tissue sheath; ORS, outer root sheath; IRS, inner root sheath; CS, cashmere shaft. (E) Fetal period of 135 day (100×).

Figure 2

Cycling of follicle on Inner Mongolia cashmere goat [11]. (A) Telogen (January). (B) Early anagen (April). The arrow indicate the finger cell group in active. (C) Anagen (August). (D) telogen (November). Original magnifications, 400×.

Figure 3

Venn diagram analysis of differentially expressed genes on days 45, 55, and 65 of the fetal period.

Figure 4

Cluster diagram of 2,081 differentially expressed genes on days 45, 55, and 65 of the fetal period. In the graph, the green color indicates high gene expression level, and the red color indicates low gene expression level, each column represents a gene, each row is compared with a sample of different periods, the left side from top to bottom are goat-65-3, goat-65-1, goat-65-2, goat-55-2, goat-55-1, goat-45-1, goat-45-3, goat-55-3, goat-45-2, the increase in gene expression is expressed in color from green to red.

Figure 5

Relative expression levels of FoxN1, FoxE1, and FoxI3 genes during the fetal period. The different letters indicate significant difference at p<0.05.

Figure 6

Relative expression levels of FoxN1, FoxE1, and FoxI3 genes during the 12-month period. The different letters represent significant difference at p<0.05.

Figure 7

Expression of FoxN1 protein in the fetal period.

Figure 8

Expression of FoxE1 protein in the fetal period.

Figure 9

Expression of FoxN1 protein in the different growth periods.

Figure 10

Expression of FoxE1 protein between different growth periods.