BACKGROUND Drip loss is a key aspect of meat quality. Transcriptome profiles of muscle with divergent drip loss would offer important insight into the genetic factors responsible for the trait. In this study, drip loss and other meat quality traits of 28 purebred Duroc pigs were measured, muscles of these individuals were RNA sequenced, and eight individuals with extremely low and high drip loss were selected for analyzing their transcriptome differences and identifying potential candidate genes affecting drip loss. RESULTS As a result, 363 differentially expressed (DE) genes were detected in the comparative gene expression analysis, of which 239 were up-regulated and 124 were down-regulated in the low drip loss group. The DE genes were further filtered by correlation analysis between their expression and drip loss values in the 28 Duroc pigs measured and comparison of them with QTLs affecting drip loss. Consequently, of the 363 DE genes, 100 were identified as critical DE genes for drip loss. Functional analysis of these critical DE genes revealed some GO terms (extracellular matrix, cell adhesion mediated by integrin, heterotypic cell-cell adhesion), pathway (ECM-receptor interaction), and new potential candidate genes (TNC, ITGA5, ITGA11, THBS3 and CD44) which played an important role in regulating the variation of drip loss, and deserved to carry further studies to unravel their specific mechanism on drip loss. CONCLUSIONS Our study revealed some GO terms, pathways and potential candidate genes affecting drip loss. It provides crucial information to understand the molecular mechanism of drip loss, and would be of help for improving meat quality of pigs.

中文翻译：

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肌肉的比较基因表达谱揭示了影响猪肉滴水损失的潜在候选基因。

背景技术滴水损失是肉品质的关键方面。具有不同滴水损失的肌肉的转录组图谱将提供重要的洞察力，以了解造成该性状的遗传因素。在这项研究中，测量了28头杜洛克纯种猪的滴水损失和其他肉质性状，对这些猪的肌肉进行了RNA测序，并选择了8个滴水损失极低和极高的猪来分析其转录组差异，并确定可能影响该基因的候选基因。滴水损失。结果结果，在比较基因表达分析中检测到363个差异表达（DE）基因，其中在低滴水损失组中有239个上调而有124个下调。通过在28只测量的杜洛克猪中表达和滴漏值之间的相关性分析，进一步过滤DE基因，并将它们与影响滴漏的QTL进行比较。因此，在363个DE基因中，有100个被确定为滴失的关键DE基因。对这些关键DE基因的功能分析显示了一些GO术语（细胞外基质，整合素介导的细胞粘附，异型细胞间粘附），途径（ECM-受体相互作用）和新的潜在候选基因（TNC，ITGA5，ITGA11，THBS3和CD44）在调节滴水损失的变化中起着重要作用，值得进一步研究以阐明其滴水损失的具体机制。结论我们的研究揭示了一些影响滴水损失的GO术语，途径和潜在的候选基因。