Transcriptome profiling of Hu sheep testicular development associated with dietary energy restriction and during compensatory compensation

To investigate the effect of energy levels on sheep testicular development, we systematically investigated mRNAs using high-throughput sequencing at two dietary energy levels of Hu sheep (maintenance energy and 55% energy levels) chrysophanol alone treatment and combination treatment as well as revealed that the combination treatment the most defence-related genes induced expression changes. We identified numerous differentially expressed genes that exhibited distinct expression patterns, and defence-related genes that were highly differentiated between the physcion and chrysophanol alone treatment and combination treatment. These genes have known or potential roles in defense response and were enriched in functional gene categories potentially responsible for cucumber resistance. Therefore, they are appealing candidates for further investigation of the gene expression and associated regulatory mechanisms related to defense response. Overall design: mRNA profiles of Hu sheep were generated by deep sequencing, three testis samples for each dietary energy levels, including maintenance energy and 55% energy levels, using Illumina.