La Trobe

Expression of mitochondrial protein genes encoded by nuclear and mitochondrial genomes correlate with energy metabolism in dairy cattle

Version 2 2023-11-09, 05:38
Version 1 2020-11-12, 02:07
journal contribution
posted on 2023-11-09, 05:38 authored by Jigme Dorji, CJ Vander Jagt, JB Garner, LC Marett, BA Mason, CM Reich, Ruidong XiangRuidong Xiang, EL Clark, Benjamin CocksBenjamin Cocks, Amanda ChamberlainAmanda Chamberlain, Iona MacLeodIona MacLeod, Hans Daetwyler
© 2020, The Author(s). Background: Mutations in the mitochondrial genome have been implicated in mitochondrial disease, often characterized by impaired cellular energy metabolism. Cellular energy metabolism in mitochondria involves mitochondrial proteins (MP) from both the nuclear (NuMP) and mitochondrial (MtMP) genomes. The expression of MP genes in tissues may be tissue specific to meet varying specific energy demands across the tissues. Currently, the characteristics of MP gene expression in tissues of dairy cattle are not well understood. In this study, we profile the expression of MP genes in 29 adult and six foetal tissues in dairy cattle using RNA sequencing and gene expression analyses: particularly differential gene expression and co-expression network analyses. Results: MP genes were differentially expressed (DE; over-expressed or under-expressed) across tissues in cattle. All 29 tissues showed DE NuMP genes in varying proportions of over-expression and under-expression. On the other hand, DE of MtMP genes was observed in < 50% of tissues and notably MtMP genes within a tissue was either all over-expressed or all under-expressed. A high proportion of NuMP (up to 60%) and MtMP (up to 100%) genes were over-expressed in tissues with expected high metabolic demand; heart, skeletal muscles and tongue, and under-expressed (up to 45% of NuMP, 77% of MtMP genes) in tissues with expected low metabolic rates; leukocytes, thymus, and lymph nodes. These tissues also invariably had the expression of all MtMP genes in the direction of dominant NuMP genes expression. The NuMP and MtMP genes were highly co-expressed across tissues and co-expression of genes in a cluster were non-random and functionally enriched for energy generation pathway. The differential gene expression and co-expression patterns were validated in independent cow and sheep datasets. Conclusions: The results of this study support the concept that there are biological interaction of MP genes from the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes given their over-expression in tissues with high energy demand and co-expression in tissues. This highlights the importance of considering MP genes from both genomes in future studies related to mitochondrial functions and traits related to energy metabolism.

Funding

Agriculture Victoria & Dairy Australia | DairyBio

History

Publication Date

2020-12-01

Journal

BMC Genomics

Volume

21

Issue

1

Article Number

720

Pagination

17p.

Publisher

BioMed Central

ISSN

1471-2164

Rights Statement

The Author reserves all moral rights over the deposited text and must be credited if any re-use occurs. Documents deposited in OPAL are the Open Access versions of outputs published elsewhere. Changes resulting from the publishing process may therefore not be reflected in this document. The final published version may be obtained via the publisher’s DOI. Please note that additional copyright and access restrictions may apply to the published version.

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