Spatio-temporal transcriptome dynamics coordinate rapid transition of core crop functions in ‘lactating’ pigeon

by Yujie Wang, Xun Wang, Yi Luo, Jiaman Zhang, Yu Lin, Jie Wu, Bo Zeng, Lei Liu, Peiqi Yan, Jiyuan Liang, Hongrui Guo, Long Jin, Qianzi Tang, Keren Long, Mingzhou Li

Pigeons (Columba livia) are among a select few avian species that have developed a specialized reproductive mode wherein the parents produce a ‘milk’ in their crop to feed newborn squabs. Nonetheless, the transcriptomic dynamics and role in the rapid transition of core crop functions during ‘lactation’ remain largely unexplored. Here, we generated ade novo pigeon genome assembly to construct a high resolution spatio-temporal transcriptomic landscape of the crop epithelium across the entire breeding stage. This multi-omics analysis identified a set of ‘lactation’-related genes involved in lipid and protein metabolism, which contribute to the rapid functional transitions in the crop. Analysis ofin situ high-throughput chromatin conformation capture (Hi-C) sequencing revealed extensive reorganization of promoter-enhancer interactions linked to the dynamic expression of these ‘lactation’-related genes between stages. Moreover, their expression is spatially localized in specific epithelial layers, and can be correlated with phenotypic changes in the crop. These results illustrate the preferentialde novo synthesis of ‘milk’ lipids and proteins in the crop, and provides candidate enhancer loci for further investigation of the regulatory elements controlling pigeon ‘lactation’.

Source: PLoS Genetics - June 8, 2023 Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Yujie Wang Source Type: research