PGC-1α differentially regulates the mRNA expression profiles of genes related to myofiber type specificity in chicken

Abstract

Previous studies on mammals showed that peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator-1α (PGC-1α) played a prominent role in regulating muscle fiber type transition and composition. However, the role of PGC-1α in chicken muscle has seldom been explored. To investigate the effect of PGC-1α on chicken skeletal muscles in this study, the PGC-1α gene was overexpressed or silenced in chicken primary myoblasts by using lentivirus, and then the effects of the PGC-1α gene overexpression and knockdown on the mRNA expression profile of genes related to myofiber type specificity were examined during fiber formation. The results showed that overexpression of PGC-1α from proliferation to differentiation was accompanied by the up-regulated expression of Pax7, MyoD, and CnAα, which was significantly (P0.05) on the expression of CnB1, NFATc3, and MyHC FRM during myofiber formation. The effective silence (P0.05) on the expression of CnB1, NFATc3, and MyHC FRM. These results indicated that the role of PGC-1α in regulating the fiber type specificity of chicken skeletal muscles might be similar to that in mammals, which interplayed with key genes related to myocyte differentiation and calcineurin signaling pathway.

Keywords

• PGC-1α gene
• chicken
• myofiber type specificity
• mRNA expression profile