Bioinformatic identification and expression analysis of the chicken B cell lymphoma (BCL) gene

B cell lymphoma (BCL) families play an important role in apoptosis as a growth factor, cell death programming, cytokine expression and immune-related genes expression.

In this study, to investigate the roles of BCLs, we performed genome-wide identification, expression and functional analyses of the BCL family in chicken.

Chicken BCLs genes were identified and analyzed by using bioinformatics approach. Expression profiles and Hierarchical cluster analysis of the BCLs genes in different chicken tissues were obtained from the genome-wide RNA-seq in the GEO, and Cluster and Java Treeview, respectively.

A total of 16 BCLs genes were identified from the chicken genome, which could be further classified into five distinct groups in the phylogenetic tree. On the other hand, the interaction among BCLs proteins and between BCLs proteins with NF-κB subunits are limited, indicating that the remaining the functions of BCLs protein could be investigated in chicken. Moreover, KEGG pathway analysis indicated that BCL gene family was involved in regulation of apoptotic and immune response. Finally, BCL gene family was differentially expressed in chicken tissues, pathogen infection and growth stages of early chicken early embryo.

This study provides significant insights into the potential functions of BCLs in chicken, including the regulation of apoptosis, cell death and expression of immune-related genes.