Transcriptome Profiling of Longissimus Dorsi Muscle of Donkeys with High and Low Intramuscular Fat Content

The content of intramuscular fat (IMF) is closely related to meat quality traits. In this study, in order to explore the candidate genes related to IMF content, the longissimus dorsi muscle of Guangling donkey was measured for intramuscular fat content. According to its intramuscular fat content, it was divided into two groups, the low fat group (L , N=3) and high-fat group (H, n=3), using RNA-seq to identify differentially expressed genes (DGEs) on the longissimus dorsi muscle tissue of Guangling donkey with high and low intramuscular fat content to reveal the possibility Gene network and metabolic pathways that help increase intramuscular fat content. A total of 167 DEGs (|log2Fold Change|>=1 and FDR<0.05) were detected in the high (H) and low (L) groups of Guangling donkeys, of which 64 were up-regulated genes and 103 were down-regulated genes. The GO enrichment and KEGG pathway analysis showed that these differential genes were enriched in several biological processes and pathways related to adipocyte differentiation, lipid biosynthesis, and neutral lipid metabolism. These results will help to further explore the molecular mechanism of IMF deposition in donkeys and provide a theoretical basis for the molecular breeding of Guangling donkeys. Illumina Nova seq was used to sequence the high and low intramuscular fat content in longissimus muscle of Guangling donkey, and the mRNA profiles of high (H) and low (L) intramuscular fat content of of Guangling donkey longissimus dorsi muscle were obtained