Characterisation of gene expression in bovine adipose tissue before and after fattening

It has been reported that fattening causes bovine adipose tissue development associated with an enlargement in adipocyte cell size. As a first study to elucidate mechanisms of bovine adipose tissue development during fattening, our experiment was designed to characterise gene expression in bovine adipose tissue before and after fattening. We randomly isolated a large number of cDNA clones derived from bovine adipose tissue before and after fattening. Sequence analysis of the isolated clones showed that 3 and 10 clones from before and after fattening, respectively, correspond to genes related to adipocyte development and/or function in the adipose tissue. In addition, we isolated cDNA clones that possess negative signal by hybridising the cDNA population from the adipose tissue after fattening with that before fattening as a probe. As a result, we identified five types of transcripts observed in the adipose tissue after fattening but not before fattening. Two of the five are likely to encode bovine orthologs of phospholipase A2 and RNA helicase p68, while the other three represent unknown genes. Further functional investigation of the identified genes might lead to elucidation of mechanisms of bovine adipose tissue development during fattening.