Comprehensive Profiling of Circular RNAs in Goat Dermal Papilla Cells and Prediction of Their Modulatory Roles in Hair Growth

Sen Ma, Xiaochun Xu, Xiaolong Wang, Yuxin Yang, Yinghua Shi () and Yulin Chen ()
Additional contact information
Sen Ma: College of Animal Science and Technology, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450002, China
Xiaochun Xu: Collaborative Innovation Center for Food Production and Safety, North Minzu University, Yinchuan 750000, China
Xiaolong Wang: Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Shaanxi Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang 712100, China
Yuxin Yang: Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Shaanxi Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang 712100, China
Yinghua Shi: College of Animal Science and Technology, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450002, China
Yulin Chen: Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Shaanxi Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang 712100, China

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 9, 1-14

Abstract: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are capable of finely modulating gene expression at transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels; however, their characters in dermal papilla cells (DPCs)—the signaling center of hair follicle—are still obscure. Herein, we established a comprehensive atlas of circRNAs in DPCs and their skin counterparts—dermal fibroblasts (DFs)—from cashmere goats. In terms of the results, a sum of 3706 circRNAs were bioinformatically identified. Subsequent analysis suggested that the detected transcripts exhibited several prominent genomic features, including exons as their main sources. Compared with DFs, 76 circRNAs significantly displayed higher abundances in goat DPCs, with 45 transcripts markedly exhibiting adverse trends ( p < 0.05). Furthermore, potential roles and underlying molecular mechanisms of circRNAs in goat DPCs were speculated through constructing their possible regulatory networks with mRNAs and microRNAs (miRNAs). We found that the circRNAs may serve as miRNA sponges to alleviate three hair growth-related functional genes ( HOXC8 , RSPO1 , and CCBE1 ) of DPCs from miRNAs-imposed post-transcriptional modulation, further facilitating two critical processes ( HOXC8 and RSPO1 : hair follicle stem cell activation; CCBE1 : follicular angiogenesis) closely involved in hair growth. In addition, we also speculated that two intron-derived circRNAs (chi_circ_0005569 and chi_circ_0005570) possibly affect the expression of their host gene CCBE1 at a transcriptional level in the nucleus. The above results demonstrated that circRNAs are abundantly expressed in goat DPCs, and certain circRNAs are potential participators in hair growth via the effects on the levels of related functional genes. Our study offers a preliminary clue for researchers hoping to untangle the roles of non-coding RNAs in hair growth.

Keywords: circRNAs; DPCs; cashmere goats; HOXC8; RSPO1; CCBE1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/9/1306/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/9/1306/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:12:y:2022:i:9:p:1306-:d:897798

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().