Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis Unraveling Transcriptional Regulation of High-altitude Adaptation of Tibetan Pigs

To elucidate further molecular mechanisms underlying the regulation of hypoxia-adaptive phenotypes in Tibetan pigs, we used transcriptome microarrays from lung tissues of Tibetan pigs and Duroc pigs both at high and low altitude analyzed differentially expressed genes (DEGs), biological pathway and constructed co-expression regulation network. A total of 3,068 DEGs were identified which involved metabolic process, cellular process, immune biological process and angiogenesis pathway. The regulatory (RIF) and phenotypic (PIF) impact factors analysis identified several known and potentially regulators of hypoxia adaption, including IKBKG, KLF6 and RBPJ (RIF1), SF3B1, EFEMP1, HOXB6 and ATF6 (RIF2). We employed a complete migrant design, i.e. Tibetan pigs from Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Diqing (3,500 m) (TH) and Duroc pigs from lowland (Guangzhou, 40 m) (DL) were migrated to lowland (TL) or highland (DH) on 1 month old, respectively and raised until 6 month old. Gene expression of lung tissuesfrom four groups was measured.