Identification And Development Regularity Of Differentially Expressed Genes Associated With Rabbit Wool Fiber Growth

The texture of rabbit hair is fluffy and lightsome, so people always use it as a high quality textile material, it has an important economic value because of its good heat retention. At present, there are a lot of scholars studying in candidate genes affecting animal hair quality traits, but the main researches were focused on human and sheep, and fewer studies on rabbits, so the wool rabbit breeding progress was greatly restricted.New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits as meat rabbit, the wool coat of NZW rabbit was standard type, its coat density was relative sparse, wool fiber diameter was coarse and the number of coarse wool fiber was high; Wanxi Angora (WA) rabbits as wool rabbits, the wool coat of WA rabbit was long hair type, its coat density was relative high, the diameter of the wool fiber was small. Therefore, this study chose NZW rabbits and WA rabbits as test materials to study genes related with the hair fiber growth beacause of the differences in hair length and hair density. This study including:1. Using the rabbit genome-wide expression microarray to screen differentially expressed genes associated with the developments of wool fiber growth, and validating the microarray results preliminarily by using real-time PCR method.2. Studying the development regularities of WntlOb, SFRP2, Shh gene in WA rabbit in0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22weeks, and the expression levels in different parts of the male and female.3. Studying the development regularities of Wnt10b, SFRP2, Shh gene in NZW rabbit in0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22weeks, and the expression levels in different parts of the male and female. Then comparing the expression levels of Wnt10b, SFRP2, Shh gene in WA rabbit and the NZW rabbit. This study analyzed Wnt10b gene exon3polymorphism in Wanxi Angora rabbit group by using the PCR-SSCP technology, the number of Wanxi Angora rabbit was240. And we made association analysis with its body weight and gross weight.The main results of this study:1. Using Aglient rabbit gene chip microarray screened1067differentially expressed genes in WA rabbit and NZW rabbit, including714known genes,284up-regulated genes and430down-regulated genes. We found WntlOb, Shh, Notch1, SH3GL2, SFPR2, DKK4gene might be involved in the development of rabbit wool fiber growth. 2. The expression leves of Wnt10b, SFPR2, Shh gene in different parts of WA female and male rabbits were not exact the same, but from0to4weeks, Wnt10b and Shh gene were up-regulated; Shh gene was down-regulated.3. The expression levels of Wnt10b gene in the WA rabbit and the NZW rabbit were not consistent absolutely. The expression levels of WntlOb gene in0week of age, the expression level of Wnt10b gene in WA was lower than that in NZW rabbit, in16weeks old, the expression level of WntlOb gene in WA rabbit was lower than that in NZW rabbit, but the difference was not significant. But in other weeks, the results showed that the expression levels of Wnt10b gene in WA rabbits were higher than those in NZW rabbits.4. The expression levels of SFRP2gene had many differences in the different varieties of the same week-old.0,4,6,10,12weeks, the expression levels of SFRP2gene in WA rabbit were lower than those in NZW rabbits;2,8,14to22weeks of age, the expression levels of SFRP2gene in WA rabbits were higher than those in NZW rabbits.5. The expression levels of Shh gene in two rabbit breeds had the consistent trend. In addition, the expression levels of Shh gene in the16weeks old in NZW rabbits were significantly higher than those in WA rabbits (P<0.01), in other weeks, the expression levels of Shh gene in WA rabbits were higher than those in NZW rabbits.6. The population numbers of AA, AB and BB genotypes were179,52and9. The genotype frequencies of AA, AB and BB were0.746,0.217and0.038. Allele A frequency was0.854, allele B frequency was0.146, the exon3of Wnt10b gene in Wanxi Angora rabbit were AA genotype and AB genotype, and that showed low polymorphism (PIC=0.218<0.25). The highest gross weight was BB genotype, there was significant difference (P<0.05) among AA genotype and BB, there was not significant (P>0.05) between AB and BB genotype. BB genotype had the highest body weigh, but were not significant differences (P>0.05) in three genotypes.