title: Skin transcriptome profiles associated with coat color in sheep.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Previous molecular genetic studies of physiology and pigmentation of sheep skin have focused primarily on a limited number of genes and proteins. To identify additional genes that may play important roles in coat color regulation, Illumina sequencing technology was used to catalog global gene expression profiles in skin of sheep with white versus black coat color.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 90,006 and 74,533 unigenes assembled from the reads obtained from white and black sheep skin, respectively. Genes encoding for the ribosomal proteins and keratin associated proteins were most highly expressed. A total of 2,235 known genes were differentially expressed in black versus white sheep skin, with 479 genes up-regulated and 1,756 genes down-regulated. A total of 845 novel genes were differentially expressed in black versus white sheep skin, consisting of 107 genes which were up-regulated (including 2 highly expressed genes exclusively expressed in black sheep skin) and 738 genes that were down-regulated. There was also a total of 49 known coat color genes expressed in sheep skin, from which 13 genes showed higher expression in black sheep skin. Many of these up-regulated genes, such as DCT, MATP, TYR and TYRP1, are members of the components of melanosomes and their precursor ontology category.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The white and black sheep skin transcriptome profiles obtained provide a valuable resource for future research to understand the network of gene expression controlling skin physiology and melanogenesis in sheep.
authors.affiliation: College of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Shanxi Agricultural University, Taigu 030801, China.
authors.forename: Ruiwen
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Jianshan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Junming
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.forename: Haidong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Xue
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.forename: Xiaoyun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Yunfei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Muren
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Herrid
authors.forename: Wenjun
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Xiaoyan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Jianbo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.forename: George W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Changsheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dong
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006197:Hair / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D008543:Melanins / Q000096:biosynthesis; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA; D012756:Sheep / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000235:genetics*; D012867:Skin / Q000378:metabolism*; D012880:Skin Pigmentation / Q000235:genetics*; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D008543:Melanins; D014157:Transcription Factors