A Gene Expression Atlas From Bovine RNAseq Data

Abstract Text: With the aim of identifying genes which show tissue specific expression (TSE) in bovine, we sequenced the transcriptomes of 18 tissues (with three replicates per tissue) from one lactating cow. Most tissues had similar proportions of low, medium and high expressed genes. Mammary tissue had the least expressed genes with 62% of transcripts from the four casein genes. Except for blood and leg muscle, all tissues had more up-regulated genes than down-regulated genes with significant TSE. Hierarchical clustering of tissue to tissue gene expression found that the two brain tissues had similar expression profiles, as did the three muscle tissues. Functional annotation analysis of the top 200 differentially expressed genes for each tissue found many of the biological processes and pathways that were significantly enriched (p < 0.01) already have an established role in those particular tissues.

Keywords:

RNAseq

Gene expression

Tissue specific expression