title: High-Throughput Sequencing Reveals Circulating miRNAs as Potential Biomarkers for Measuring Puberty Onset in Chicken (Gallus gallus).
abstract: There are still no highly sensitive and unique biomarkers for measurement of puberty onset. Circulating miRNAs have been shown to be promising biomarkers for diagnosis of various diseases. To identify circulating miRNAs that could be served as biomarkers for measuring chicken (Gallus gallus) puberty onset, the Solexa deep sequencing was performed to analyze the miRNA expression profiles in serum and plasma of hens from two different pubertal stages, before puberty onset (BO) and after puberty onset (AO). 197 conserved and 19 novel miRNAs (reads > 10) were identified as serum/plasma-expressed miRNAs in the chicken. The common miRNA amounts and their expression changes from BO to AO between serum and plasma were very similar, indicating the different treatments to generate serum and plasma had quite small influence on the miRNAs. 130 conserved serum-miRNAs were showed to be differentially expressed (reads > 10, P < 0.05) from BO to AO, with 68 up-regulated and 62 down-regulated. 4829 putative genes were predicted as the targets of the 40 most differentially expressed miRNAs (|log2(fold-change)|>1.0, P < 0.01). Functional analysis revealed several pathways that were associated with puberty onset. Further quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) test found that a seven-miRNA panel, including miR-29c, miR-375, miR-215, miR-217, miR-19b, miR-133a and let-7a, had great potentials to serve as novel biomarkers for measuring puberty onset in chicken. Due to highly conserved nature of miRNAs, the findings could provide cues for measurement of puberty onset in other animals as well as humans.
authors.affiliation: National Chickens Genetic Resources, Poultry institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Yangzhou, PR China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: National Chickens Genetic Resources, Poultry institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Yangzhou, PR China.
authors.forename: Yunfen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: National Chickens Genetic Resources, Poultry institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Yangzhou, PR China.
authors.forename: Yijun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Su
authors.affiliation: National Chickens Genetic Resources, Poultry institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Yangzhou, PR China.
authors.forename: Guohui
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: National Chickens Genetic Resources, Poultry institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Yangzhou, PR China.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Qu
authors.affiliation: National Chickens Genetic Resources, Poultry institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Yangzhou, PR China.
authors.forename: Huiyong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: National Chickens Genetic Resources, Poultry institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Yangzhou, PR China.
authors.forename: Kehua
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: National Chickens Genetic Resources, Poultry institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Yangzhou, PR China.
authors.forename: Jianmin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.affiliation: College of Animal Science & Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, PR China.
authors.forename: Honglin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood*; D002645:Chickens / Q000235:genetics*; D015536:Down-Regulation / Q000235:genetics; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics*; D011627:Puberty / Q000235:genetics*; D012741:Sexual Maturation / Q000235:genetics*; D015854:Up-Regulation / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D035683:MicroRNAs