Assessment of microRNA profiles in small extracellular vesicles isolated from bovine colostrum with different immunoglobulin G concentrations

T Ma; W Li; Y Chen; E R Cobo; C Windeyer; L Gamsjäger; Q Diao; Y Tu; L L Guan

doi:10.3168/jdsc.2022-0225

Assessment of microRNA profiles in small extracellular vesicles isolated from bovine colostrum with different immunoglobulin G concentrations

JDS Commun. 2022 Jul 26;3(5):328-333. doi: 10.3168/jdsc.2022-0225. eCollection 2022 Sep.

Authors

T Ma^{1

2}, W Li², Y Chen², E R Cobo³, C Windeyer³, L Gamsjäger⁴, Q Diao¹, Y Tu¹, L L Guan²

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Feed Biotechnology of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Institute of Feed Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China.
² Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G2P5, Canada.
³ Department of Production Animal Health, University of Calgary, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Calgary, AB T2N1N4, Canada.
⁴ Department of Ruminant Medicine, Vetsuisse Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.

Abstract

The consumption of bovine colostrum by newborn calves during the first days of life is essential to ensure the transfer of passive immunity. In addition to critical IgG, colostrum also contains non-IgG biomolecules, including microRNA (miRNA). The present study investigated the profiles of miRNA in small extracellular vesicles (sEV) isolated from bovine colostrum with high (256.5 ± 5.7 mg/mL, mean ± standard deviation, n = 4) and low (62.8 ± 3.6 mg/mL, n = 4) concentrations of IgG. Different combination of sEV extraction methods and bioinformatic pipelines (miRDeep2 and sRNAbench) for miRNA analysis were evaluated. Results showed that miRCURY exosome Cell/Urine/CSF and miRNeasy Mini kits yielded the highest RNA concentration. The miRNA-seq data analysis showed miRDeep2 yielded more comprehensive miRNAome compared with sRNAbench (527 versus 392 unique miRNA), whereas 389 shared miRNA were identified using both approaches. The profiles of top 50 miRNA were the same using both approaches, and their abundance contributed to 91.7% and 94.3% of total abundance of miRNA using miRDeep2 and sRNAbennch, respectively. These core miRNA were predicted to target 2,655 genes, which regulate 78 KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) level-3 pathways including PI3K-Akt and MAPK signaling pathway, axon guidance, and focal adhesion. The expression profiles of sEV-associated miRNA were similar between high- and low-IgG colostrum samples, despite the fact that the abundance of miR-27a-3p was higher in colostrum with high concentrations of IgG. In conclusion, a core miRNAome in bovine colostrum may play a role in regulating health and developmental stages in neonatal calves, independent of IgG concentration.