Transcriptome-metabolome analysis reveals how sires affect meat quality in hybrid sheep populations

Bowen Chen; Yaojing Yue; Jianye Li; Jianbin Liu; Chao Yuan; Tingting Guo; Dan Zhang; Bohui Yang; Zengkui Lu

doi:10.3389/fnut.2022.967985

Transcriptome-metabolome analysis reveals how sires affect meat quality in hybrid sheep populations

Front Nutr. 2022 Aug 11:9:967985. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2022.967985. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Bowen Chen^{1

2}, Yaojing Yue^{1

2}, Jianye Li^{1

2}, Jianbin Liu^{1

2}, Chao Yuan^{1

2}, Tingting Guo^{1

2}, Dan Zhang^{1

2}, Bohui Yang^{1

2}, Zengkui Lu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics and Breeding on the Tibetan Plateau, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Lanzhou Institute of Husbandry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou, China.
² Sheep Breeding Engineering Technology Research Center of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou, China.

Abstract

Crossbreeding improves and enhances meat quality and is widely used in sheep production; however, the molecular mechanisms underlying the meat quality of various crossbred sheep remain unknown. In this study, male Southdown, Suffolk and Hu sheep were crossbred with female Hu sheep, and the transcriptomes and metabolomes of the longissimus dorsi muscle of the F1 generation were sequenced to explore how different sire breeds affect meat quality. The results showed that 631 differentially expressed genes and 119 significantly altered metabolites contributed to muscle development characteristics and meat quality-related diversity (P < 0.05). These genes and metabolites were significantly enriched in lipid metabolism pathways, including arachidonic acid metabolism and PPAR signaling. Several candidate genes were associated with muscle growth, such as MYLK3, MYL10, FIGN, MYH8, MYOM3, LMCD1, and FLRT1. Among these, MYH8 and MYL10 participated in regulating muscle growth and development and were correlated with meat quality-related fatty acid levels (|r| > 0.5 and p < 0.05). We selected mRNA from four of these genes to verify the accuracy of the sequencing data via qRT-PCR. Our findings provide further insight into the key genes and metabolites involved in muscle growth and meat quality in hybrid sheep populations.

Keywords: hybridization; meat quality; metabolomics; sheep; transcriptomics.