The genetic influence of sex on gene expression for blood in pigs.

IF 3.7 2区生物学 Q2 BIOTECHNOLOGY & APPLIED MICROBIOLOGY

BMC Genomics Pub Date : 2025-10-09 DOI:10.1186/s12864-025-12029-3

Qing Lin, Junxiong Huang, Tianru Zhou, Teddy Tinashe Chitotombe, Jinyan Teng, Jiaqi Li

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background: Pigs are one of the most important farm animals in the agrifood industry. Many complex traits and patterns of gene expression exhibit sexual dimorphisms in pigs. However, the impact of sex on gene expression remains poorly understood.

Results: In this study, we utilized the gene expression data of blood tissue derived from PigGTEx project to explore the genetic influence of sex on gene expression in pigs. Differential gene expression analysis identified 116 male-biased and 248 female-biased genes. Sex-combined and sex-stratified cis-heritability (cis-h²) were highly positively correlated, while the low correlation were observed between male-stratified and female-stratified cis-h². Sex-interaction expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) mapping identified 16 genes with at least one sex-biased eQTL (sb-eGenes) in blood, including 7 female-specific eGenes and 4 male-specific eGenes. Notable examples included the immunology-associated male-specific eGene SLC4A1 and the female-specific eGene PRR14, illustrating sex-specific regulation of gene expression in blood. We further found that sb-eGenes were associated with various complex traits through distinct genetic regulation mechanisms. For example, the male-specific gene SLC4A1 was associated with average daily gain with the identical effect, while the female-specific gene MFGE8 exhibited opposite effect.

Conclusions: This study revealed sex-biased gene expression patterns and sex-dependent regulatory effect of gene expression of blood tissues in pigs. Additionally, this study found the sexually dimorphic regulation of gene expression underlying complex traits. These findings provided a comprehensive insight and resource and advance our understanding of sexual dimorphism in genetic mechanism underlying complex traits in blood.

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性别对猪血液基因表达的遗传影响。

背景：猪是农业食品工业中最重要的农场动物之一。许多复杂的性状和基因表达模式在猪中表现出性别二态性。然而，性别对基因表达的影响仍然知之甚少。结果：本研究利用来自PigGTEx项目的血液组织基因表达数据，探讨了性别对猪基因表达的遗传影响。差异基因表达分析鉴定出116个男性偏倚基因和248个女性偏倚基因。性别组合和性别分层的顺式遗传力（cis-h2）呈高度正相关，而男性分层和女性分层的顺式遗传力（cis-h2）呈低相关。性别相互作用表达数量性状位点（eQTL）定位鉴定出血液中至少有一个性别偏置eQTL （bs -eGenes）的16个基因，包括7个女性特异性eGenes和4个男性特异性eGenes。值得注意的例子包括免疫相关的男性特异性eGene SLC4A1和女性特异性eGene PRR14，说明了血液中基因表达的性别特异性调控。我们进一步发现sb-eGenes通过不同的遗传调控机制与多种复杂性状相关。例如，男性特异性基因SLC4A1与平均日增重相关，效果相同，而女性特异性基因MFGE8则表现出相反的效果。结论：本研究揭示了猪血液组织基因表达的性别偏倚和性别依赖调控作用。此外，本研究还发现了复杂性状下基因表达的两性二态调控。这些发现提供了全面的见解和资源，并促进了我们对血液中复杂性状的性别二态性遗传机制的理解。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

BMC Genomics 生物-生物工程与应用微生物

CiteScore

7.40

自引率

4.50%

发文量

769

审稿时长

6.4 months

期刊介绍： BMC Genomics is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on all aspects of genome-scale analysis, functional genomics, and proteomics. BMC Genomics is part of the BMC series which publishes subject-specific journals focused on the needs of individual research communities across all areas of biology and medicine. We offer an efficient, fair and friendly peer review service, and are committed to publishing all sound science, provided that there is some advance in knowledge presented by the work.