Screening of cashmere fineness-related genes and their ceRNA network construction in cashmere goats

Cashmere fineness is a key index to measure the quality of cashmere. At present, the international market thinks that the finer the cashmere, the better the variety. However, there are not many studies on the regulation of cashmere fineness. For the first time, we have integrated the high-throughput sequencing results of the skin of two cashmere goat breeds. We believe that we can predict the genes that may regulate cashmere fineness by constructing some network regulation competitive with endogenous RNA.

羊绒细度（cashmere fineness）是衡量羊绒品质的核心指标。当前国际市场普遍认为，羊绒纤维越纤细，其品种品质越佳。然而，目前针对羊绒细度调控机制的相关研究仍较为匮乏。本研究首次整合了两个绒山羊品种的皮肤组织高通量测序（high-throughput sequencing）数据。我们提出，可通过构建竞争性内源RNA（competing endogenous RNA, ceRNA）调控网络，预测可能参与羊绒细度调控的候选基因。