Fat Metabolism-related lncRNA and Target Regulation and Application Studies in Chickens

Lipids are essential for cellular and organismal life. These make up a significant portion of cell membranes, act as energy reserves and are also signal molecules. In both humans and more distant species like chickens, the liver and adipose tissue serve as the primary organs for energy synthesis and storage. It is now well accepted that Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) contribute to many different types of biological processes, including lipid metabolism. The key elements influencing poultry slaughter performance and meat quality are the distribution of adipose tissue-specific components and the rate of fat deposition. Previous research revealed that the physicochemical properties and gene expression patterns of diverse adipose tissues varied. To evaluate the role of lncRNAs play in chicken abdominal and intramuscular adipogenesis, transcriptome analysis was carried out by Ribo-Zero RNA-Seq technology. The lncRNAs expression profiles were investigated during different development stages of the Gushi chicken i.e. 7, 14, 21 and 28 weeks. Among the screened lncRNA profiles, 77.44 % lncRNAs were identified by all three databases i.e. CNCI (Coding-Noncoding Index), CPC (coding potential calculator), and PFAM (protein family's database). The intergenic region was home to eighty percent of these long noncoding RNAs (lncRNA). Another goal of this study was to gain a better understanding of the role of lncRNAs in the abdominal and intramuscular adipogenesis in Gushi chickens, differentially expressed (DE) lncRNAs were further characterized. The isolated lncRNAs were compared at various stages of development of Gushi chicken. Four randomly selected DElncRNAs were validated using qRT-PCR and compared via RNA-seq sequencing. Several biological processes, such as cell adhesion, fatty acid production, and epigenetic gene regulation, were found to be enriched by DE-lncRNAs, as revealed by functional enrichment analysis. Altogether, our findings open out the known lncRNAs in Gushi chickens. This will provide useful resources for future research into the posttranscriptional regulators responsible for tissue-specific adipogenesis and for locating adipogenic lncRNAs in Gushi chickens.