Transcriptome profiling of Finnsheep ovaries during out-of-season breeding period

Authors

• Kisun Pokharel Green Technology, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Myllytie 1, FI-31600 Jokioinen, Finland / Department of Biology, University of Eastern Finland, Yliopistonranta 1 E, FI-70211 Kuopio, Finland
• Jaana Peippo Green Technology, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Myllytie 1, FI-31600 Jokioinen, Finland
• Göran Andersson Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Gerda Ulls Väg 26, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden
• Meng-Hua Li CAS Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beichen West Road No. 1-5, Chaoyang District, 100101 Beijing, China
• Juha Kantanen Green Technology, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Myllytie 1, FI-31600 Jokioinen, Finland / Department of Biology, University of Eastern Finland, Yliopistonranta 1 E, FI-70211 Kuopio, Finland

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23986/afsci.46512

Keywords:

bioinformatics pipeline, mRNA, prolific sheep breed

Abstract

Finnsheep is one of the most prolific sheep breeds in the world. We sequenced RNA-Seq libraries from the ovaries of Finnsheep ewes collected during out of season breeding period at about 30X sequence coverage. A total of 86 966 348 and 105 587 994 reads from two samples were mapped against latest available ovine reference genome (Oarv3.1). The transcriptome assembly revealed 14 870 known ovine genes, including the 15 candidate genes for fertility and out-of-season breeding. In this study we successfully used our bioinformatics pipeline to assemble the first ovarian transcriptome of Finnsheep.