Transcriptome Profile Analysis of Mechanisms of Black and White Plumage Determination in Black-Bone Chicken
Shigang Yu1, Gang Wang1, Juan Liao1
1Engineering Research Center of Sichuan Province Higher School of Local Chicken Breeds Industrialization in Southern Sichuan, College of Life Science, Leshan Normal University, Leshan, China.
Background/Aims:
Melanin is a major and ubiquitous component of plumage colouration, and patterns of melanin pigmentation in birds are extremely varied. However, the molecular mechanism of pigmentation in avian plumage is still largely unknown.
Methods:
To elucidate the molecular mechanisms involved in the formation of black and white plumage, this study takes advantage of high-throughput sequencing technology to compare differences in the transcriptome between black and white chicken feather bulbs. In total, we constructed six cDNA libraries from black (Group B) and white (Group W) feather bulbs in the dorsal plumage of Muchuan black-boned chickens.
Results:
A comparison between Groups B and W revealed 61 differentially expressed genes, with 47 displaying higher, and 14 displaying lower, levels of expression in white feather bulbs. Our results revealed a set of candidate genes and two potential metabolic pathways involved in black-bone chicken plumage melanogenesis. These include four homeobox genes (HOXB9, HOXC8, HOXA9, and HOXC 9), two glutathione (GSH) metabolism-related genes (CHAC1 and GPX3), and the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) signalling pathway. Two known genes, TYR and MITF, were also shown to play a role in melanin formation.
Conclusion:
our data provide a valuable resource for discovering genes important in plumage melanin formation and will help further elucidate the molecular mechanisms for black and white plumage.
Related Concept Videos
Detection of Black Holes
Their closest cousins are neutron stars, which are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed against each other, making them extremely dense. A neutron star has the same mass as the Sun but its diameter is only a few kilometers. Therefore, the escape velocity from their surface is close to the speed of light.
Not until the 1960s, when the first neutron...
Reaction Mechanisms
For instance, the decomposition of ozone appears to follow a mechanism with two steps:
Rate-Determining Steps
In a multistep reaction mechanism, one of the elementary steps progresses significantly slower than the others. This slowest step is called the rate-limiting step (or rate-determining step). A reaction cannot proceed faster than its slowest step, and hence, the rate-determining step limits the overall reaction rate.
The concept of rate-determining step can be understood from the analogy of a 4-lane freeway with a short-stretch of traffic-bottleneck caused due to...
Ribosome Profiling
Applications of ribosome profiling
Ribosome profiling has many applications, including in vivo monitoring of translation inside a particular organ or tissue type and quantifying new protein synthesis levels.
The technique...
Mechanical Protein Functions
Determining Order of Reaction


