Hepatic transcriptome profiling in beef cattle to determine the effects of fescue toxicity

The objective of our study was to assess the effect of fescue toxicosis on the overall transcriptomics profile of liver tissue on growing Angus × Simmental steers and heifers. The susceptibility was determined by the T-snip genetic tests for a total of 42 pregnant cows. At mid-gestation, these animals were randomly assigned to control group which received a based diet and fed endophyte free fescue seeds; a treatment group was fed endophyte-infected tall fescue seeds for 30 days. RNA-seq experiments were performed in liver biopsy samples, and a total of 828 differentially expressed genes were detected. Profile of transcriptome-wide gene expression changes in liver samples from Angus × Simmental cattle supplemented with endophyte-infected tall fescue seeds (n=3; data available under GSE206468) compared to control samples (n=3 susceptible and n=3 tolerant).