Expression profiles of circular RNAs in sheep skeletal muscle

• Published in: Animal bioscience 2018, 31(10), , pp.1550-1557
• Main Authors: Cao, Yang, You, Shuang, Yao, Yang, Wei, Junchang, Hazi, Wureli, Li, Cunyuan, Zhang, Xiangyu, Hou, Xiaoxu, Liu, Zhijin, Li, Xiaoyue, Wang, Dawei, Chen, Chuangfu, Zhang, Yunfeng, Ni, Wei, Hu, Shengwei
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: circRNAs; Expression Profiles; Gene expression; Genetic aspects; Methods; Observations; Physiological aspects; RNA sequencing; Sheep; Skeletal Muscle; 축산학
• ISSN: 1011-2367; 2765-0189; 1976-5517; 2765-0235
• DOI: 10.5713/ajas.17.0563

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a newfound class of non-coding RNA in animals and plants. Recent studies have revealed that circRNAs play important roles in cell proliferation, differentiation, autophagy and apoptosis during development. However, there are few reports about muscle development-related circRNAs in livestock. RNA sequencing analysis was employed to identify and annotate circRNAs from longissimus dorsi of sheep. Reverse transcription followed by real-time quantitative (q) PCR analysis verified the presence of these circRNAs.Targetscan7.0 and miRanda were used to analyse the interaction of circRNA-miRNA. To investigate the function of circRNAs, an experiment was conducted to perform enrichment analysis hosting genes of circRNAs using GO and KEGG pathways. About 75.5 million sequences were obtained from RNA libraries of sheep skeletal muscle. These sequences were mapped to 729 genes in the sheep reference genome. We identified 886 circRNAs, including numerous circular intronic RNAs (ciRNAs) and exonic circRNAs. Reverse transcription PCR and DNA sequencing analysis confirmed the presence of several circRNAs. Real-Time RT-PCR analysis exhibited resistance of sheep circRNAs to RNase R digestion. We found that many circRNAs interacted with muscle-specific miRNAs involved in growth and development of muscle, especially circ776. Gene Ontology (GO) and KEGG enrichment analysis showed that hosting genes of circRNAs was involved in muscle cell development and signaling pathway. The study provides comprehensive expression profiles of circRNAs in sheep skeletal muscle. Our study offers a large number of circRNAs to facilitate a better understanding of their roles in muscle growth. Meanwhile, we suggested that circ776 could be analyzed in future study.