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Cloning, tissue expression and imprinting status analysis of the NDN gene in Dolang sheep

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Abstract

Background

Genomic imprinting refers to expressing parent-specific genes in mammalian diploid cells. The NDN gene is maternally imprinted in humans and mice and correlates with the timing of puberty. This study aimed to investigate its imprinting status and its relationship with the onset of puberty in Dolang sheep.

Methods and results

In this study, cloning and sequencing obtained the NDN gene cDNA sequence of 1082 bp of Dolang sheep, coding for 325 amino acids. Similarity analysis and phylogenetic tree showed that the NDN gene conformed to the law of speciation and was highly conserved among mammals. RT-qPCR results showed the highest expression of NDN mRNA was found in the hypothalamus at puberty, and the expression was significantly increased and then significantly decreased from prepuberty to postpuberty in the hypothalamus, pituitary, and ovary and oviduct. Based on expressed single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), the NDN gene was expressed monoallelically in the tissues of adult and neonatal umbilical cords, and the expressed allele was paternally inherited. The NDN promoter region of 3400 bp was obtained by cloning and identified in monoallelic-expressing tissues (hypothalamus, ovary, spleen) as a differentially methylated region (DMR).

Conclusion

These findings will enrich the number of imprinted genes in sheep and suggest that the NDN gene could be a candidate gene for studying puberty initiation in Dolang sheep.

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Data availability

The data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this article or as supplementary information files. All data reported in this study is available on request from the corresponding author.

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Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 31660652, 31960655).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Tarim University, Alar, Xinjiang, China

    Yongjie Zhang, Zhiyuan Sui, Zhishuai Zhang, Chenguang Wang, Xiaojun Li & Feng Xing

  2. Key Laboratory of Tarim Animal Husbandry Science and Technology, Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, Alar, China

    Yongjie Zhang, Zhiyuan Sui, Zhishuai Zhang, Chenguang Wang, Xiaojun Li & Feng Xing

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  1. Yongjie Zhang
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Contributions

FX and YZ: were involved in conceptualization; YZ and ZS: were involved in methodology; ZZ and CW: were involved in investigation; YZ, XL, and FX: were involved in writing—original draft preparation; and YZ, ZS, ZZ, CW, XL, and FX: were involved in writing—review and editing. All authors read and agreed to the published version of the article.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Feng Xing.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This study has been approved by the Tarim University Science and Technology Ethics Committee (No. 2020051). All the experiments were conducted in accordance with ethical standards, the national and international guidelines.

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Zhang, Y., Sui, Z., Zhang, Z. et al. Cloning, tissue expression and imprinting status analysis of the NDN gene in Dolang sheep. Mol Biol Rep 51, 166 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-023-08990-5

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