Transcriptome-wide m6A methylation profiling of Wuhua yellow-feathered chicken ovary revealed regulatory pathways underlying sexual maturation and low egg-laying performance

Congjun Jia; Mengling Zhang; Xiaoyan Liu; Weilin Xu; Yanqing Xiong; Rihao Huang; Meidi Li; Mingna Li

doi:10.3389/fgene.2023.1284554

Transcriptome-wide m6A methylation profiling of Wuhua yellow-feathered chicken ovary revealed regulatory pathways underlying sexual maturation and low egg-laying performance

Front Genet. 2023 Oct 20:14:1284554. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2023.1284554. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Congjun Jia^{1

2}, Mengling Zhang^{1

2}, Xiaoyan Liu^{1

2}, Weilin Xu^{1

2}, Yanqing Xiong^{1

2}, Rihao Huang^{1

2}, Meidi Li^{1

2}, Mingna Li³

Affiliations

¹ College of Agricultural Engineering, Guangdong Meizhou Vocational and Technical College, Meizhou, China.
² Meizhou Engineering Research Center for Veterinary Medicine and Natural Medicine, Meizhou, China.
³ College of Animal Science and Technology, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, China.

Abstract

RNA N6-melthyladenosine (m6A) can play an important role in regulation of various biological processes. Chicken ovary development is closely related to egg laying performance, which is a process primarily controlled by complex gene regulations. In this study, transcriptome-wide m6A methylation of the Wuhua yellow-feathered chicken ovaries before and after sexual maturation was profiled to identify the potential molecular mechanisms underlying chicken ovary development. The results indicated that m6A levels of mRNAs were altered dramatically during sexual maturity. A total of 1,476 differential m6A peaks were found between these two stages with 662 significantly upregulated methylation peaks and 814 downregulated methylation peaks after sexual maturation. A positive correlation was observed between the m6A peaks and gene expression levels, indicating that m6A may play an important role in regulation of chicken ovary development. Functional enrichment analysis indicated that apoptosis related pathways could be the key molecular regulatory pathway underlying the poor reproductive performance of Wuhua yellow-feathered chicken. Overall, the various pathways and corresponding candidate genes identified here could be useful to facilitate molecular design breeding for improving egg production performance in Chinese local chicken breed, and it might also contribute to the genetic resource protection of valuable avian species.

Keywords: Wuhua yellow-feathered chicken; m6A methylation; ovary; reproduction; sexual maturation.

Grants and funding

The authors declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was funded by the Meizhou city social development science and technology plan project (grant number 2021B133), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 31960664), the Natural Science Foundation of Gansu Province (grant number 21JR7RA809) and the Doctor studio projects of Guangdong Meizhou Vocational and Technical College (grant number DSGDMZVTC-JCJ-2021).