Background: The molecular mechanisms underlying meat quality and muscle growth are not clear. The meat quality and growth rates of local chickens and commercial broilers are very different. The Ribo-Zero RNA-Seq technology is an effective means of analyzing transcript groups to clarify molecular mechanisms. The aim of this study was to provide a reference for studies of the differences in the meat quality and growth of different breeds of chickens.
Results: Ribo-Zero RNA-Seq technology was used to analyze the pectoral muscle transcriptomes of Gushi chickens and AA broilers. Compared with AA broilers, 1649 genes with annotated information were significantly differentially expressed (736 upregulated and 913 downregulated) in Gushi chickens with Q≤0.05 (Q is the P-value corrected by multiple assumptions test) at a fold change ≥2 or ≤0.5. In addition, 2540 novel significantly differentially expressed (SDE) genes (1405 upregulated and 1135 downregulated) were discovered. The results showed that the main signal transduction pathways that differed between Gushi chickens and AA broilers were related to amino acid metabolism. Amino acids are important for protein synthesis, and they regulate key metabolic pathways to improve the growth, development and reproduction of organisms.
Conclusion: This study showed that differentially expressed genes in the pectoral tissues of Gushi chickens and AA broilers were related to fat metabolism, which affects meat. Additionally, a large number of novel genes were found that may be involved in fat metabolism and thus may affect the formation of meat, which requires further study. The results of this study provide a reference for further studies of the molecular mechanisms of meat formation.