Spatio-temporal transcriptome dynamics coordinate rapid transition of core crop functions in ‘lactating’ pigeon

作者：Yujie Wang, Xun Wang, Yi Luo, Jiaman Zhang, Yu Lin, Jie Wu, Bo Zeng, Lei Liu, Peiqi Yan, Ji-Yuan Liang, Hongrui Guo, Long Jin, Qianzi Tang, Keren Long, Mingzhou Li · 发表于：PLoS Genetics · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1371/journal.pgen.1010746 · 被引用次数：7 · 研究领域：Plant Virus Research Studies、Plant Molecular Biology Research、Genetic and Clinical Aspects of Sex Determination and Chromosomal Abnormalities

Pigeons (Columba livia) are among a select few avian species that have developed a specialized reproductive mode wherein the parents produce a 'milk' in their crop to feed newborn squabs. Nonetheless, the transcriptomic dynamics and role in the rapid transition of core crop functions during 'lactation' remain largely unexplored. Here, we generated a de novo pigeon genome assembly to construct a high resolution spatio-temporal transcriptomic landscape of the crop epithelium across the entire breeding stage. This multi-omics analysis identified a set of 'lactation'-related genes involved in lipid and protein metabolism, which contribute to the rapid functional transitions in the crop. Analysis of in situ high-throughput chromatin conformation capture (Hi-C) sequencing revealed extensive reorganization of promoter-enhancer interactions linked to the dynamic expression of these 'lactation'-related genes between stages. Moreover, their expression is spatially localized in specific epithelial layers, and can be correlated with phenotypic changes in the crop. These results illustrate the preferential de novo synthesis of 'milk' lipids and proteins in the crop, and provides candidate enhancer loci for further investigation of the regulatory elements controlling pigeon 'lactation'.