Abstract
The current study attempts to investigate the differences in gene expression in longissimus thoracis muscles between sheep breeds acclimated to diverse environments. Changthangi sheep inhabits the cold arid plateau of Ladakh, at an altitude above 3000 m with prevalence of rarefied atmosphere. Muzzafarnagri sheep, on the other hand is found in the sub-tropical hot and humid plains at an altitude of about 250 m. Comparative transcriptomics was used to provide a molecular perspective of the differential adaptation of the two breeds. RNA sequencing data was generated from four biological replicates of the longissimus thoracis muscles from both breeds. The common genes expressed in both breeds were involved in muscle contraction and muscle fibre organization. The most significant pathways enriched in Changthangi muscles were glycogen metabolism, reduction of cytosolic Ca++ levels and NFE2L2 regulating anti-oxidant, while those in Muzzafarnagri were extracellular matrix organization and collagen formation. The hub genes identified in Changthangi were involved in hematopoiesis and HIF signaling pathway, suggesting the molecular acclimatization of Changthangi to the high altitude cold desert of Ladakh. The nodal genes discovered in Muzzafarnagri sheep were associated with the extracellular matrix which accentuates its significance in the development, growth and repair of muscles. The observed transcriptomic differences underscore the morphological and adaptive disparity between the two breeds. The candidate genes and pathways identified in this study will form the basis for future research on adaptation to high altitude and body size in small ruminants.
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Data availability
Data has been presented within the manuscript. The dataset generated in the study has been deposited in the NCBI (Short Read Archive Bioproject PRJNA995886).
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to ICAR-Consortium Research Platform-Genomics for financial support; Director, ICAR- National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (NBAGR), Karnal and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi for providing necessary facilities.
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The research was supported by grant of funds under ICAR-Consortium Research Platform on Genomics.
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RA: conceptualization and supervision. MAM and MKS: resources. AK, MK and RG: data curation. PC, SA, RS and RA: formal analyses; MK, RA: Writing - Original Draft and RA: Writing - Review & Editing. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
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All methods were carried out in accordance with guidelines of CPCSEA (Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision on Experiments on Animals), with due approval from the Institutional Animal Ethics Committee of ICAR-National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources, Karnal (F.No. NBAGR/IAEC/2017, dated 21.01.2017).
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Arora, R., Kaur, M., Kumar, A. et al. Skeletal muscle transcriptomics of sheep acclimated to cold desert and tropical regions identifies genes and pathways accentuating their diversity. Int J Biometeorol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-024-02708-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-024-02708-3