Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #307172
Title: Altered microRNA expression in bovine skeletal muscle with age

Author
item SUN, JIAJIE - Northwest Agricultural & Forestry University
item Sonstegard, Tad
item Li, Congjun - Cj
item YONGZHENG, HUANG - Northwest Agricultural & Forestry University
item LI, ZHANJIAN - Northwest Agricultural & Forestry University
item WANG, JING - Northwest Agricultural & Forestry University
item ZHANG, CHUNLEI - Jiangsu University
item LEI, CHUZHAO - Northwest Agricultural & Forestry University
item ZHAO, XIN - Northwest Agricultural & Forestry University
item CHEN, HONG - Northwest Agricultural & Forestry University

Submitted to: Scientific Reports
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/9/2014
Publication Date: 2/20/2015
Citation: Sun, J., Sonstegard, T.S., Li, C., Yongzheng, H., Li, Z., Wang, J., Zhang, C., Lei, C., Zhao, X., Chen, H. 2015. Altered microRNA expression in bovine skeletal muscle with age. Scientific Reports. 46(3):227-238. DOI: 10.1111/age.12272.

Interpretive Summary: This study was designed to better understand how expression of microRNAs, which are small non-coding RNA inhibitors of protein synthesis from mRNA transcripts, are changed depending on the growth of development stage of muscle during specific ages of an animal. Sequencing of microRNA transcripts by next generation sequencing identified 511 age-associated miRNAs of bovine skeletal muscle tissues. Only 36 of these small RNAs were differentially expressed during bovine muscle development. Computational analyses revealed that the predicted target mRNA or genes of the differently expressed microRNAs were enriched for roles in developmental and pathological conditions of bovine muscle tissues. Thus this study not only expanded the repertoire of bovine miRNAs, but revealed potential small RNA biomarkers that can be used to determine age and status of bovine muscle development. These results are important for building gene networks to better understand the biology of muscle development in meat-production livestock.

Technical Abstract: Age dependent decline in skeletal muscle function leads to several inherited and acquired muscular disorders in elderly individuals. The levels of microRNAs (miRNAs) could be altered during muscle maintenance and repair. Therefore, we performed a comprehensive investigation for miRNAs from 5 different periods during bovine skeletal muscle development using next generation small RNA sequencing. In total, 511 miRNAs, including one putatively novel miRNA, were identified. Thirty-six miRNAs were differentially expressed between prenatal and postnatal stages of muscle development. These miRNAs were predicted to target transcripts from 3,609 genes using three computational approaches: miRanda, PITA and RNAhybrid. Diseases and biological function analyses and the KEGG pathway analysis revealed that these targets were statistically enriched in functionality for muscle growth and disease. In addition, a predicted miRNA was identified to inhibit myogenic differentiation by directly targeting bovine ANGPT1 3’UTR. Our miRNA expression analysis findings from different states of muscle development and aging significantly expanded the repertoire of bovine miRNAs now shown to be expressed in muscle, and could contribute to further studies on growth and developmental disorders in this tissue type.