Differential expression profiling of estrogen receptor in the ovaries of two egg duck (Anas platyrhynchos) breeds

Abstract

In the present study, quantitative real-time PCR was employed to investigate expression profiling and expression difference of ESR1 and ESR2 in ovaries of Shaoxing duck and Jingjiang duck during three laying stages. Results showed the expression levels of ESR1 and ESR2 in ovaries were increased from the age of the first egg to the age of 500 days in both duck breeds. The expression of ESR1 in Shaoxing duck was lower than that in Jingjiang duck for the age of the first egg and of 180 days, and for the age of 500 days it was higher in Shaoxing duck than in Jingjiang duck. The ESR2 showed converse expression profiling in the two duck breeds. The results suggest that ESR1 and ESR2 mediate the process of egg laying in ducks, and that ESR2 may play a more important role for the ovary during egg-laying stages and may be closely related to the laying performance of the ducks.

Keywords

• egg duck
• ovary
• laying stage
• gene expression
• esr gene