Systems Biology under heat stress in Indian Cattle

Abstract

Transcriptome profiling of Vrindavani and Tharparkar cattle revealed that more numbers of genes dysregulated in Vrindavani than in Tharparkar. A contrast in gene expression was observed with 18.5 % of upregulated genes in Vrindavani were downregulated in Tharparkar and 17.5% upregulated genes in Tharparkar were downregulated in Vrindavani. Functional annotation of genes differentially expressed in Tharparkar and Vrindavani revealed that the systems biology in Tharparkar is moving towards counteracting the effects due to heat stress. Unlike Vrindavani, Tharparkar is not only endowed with higher expression of the scavengers (UBE2G1, UBE2S, and UBE2H) of misfolded proteins but also with protectors (VCP, Serp1, and CALR) of naive unfolded proteins. Further, higher expression of the antioxidants in Tharparkar enables it to cope up with higher levels of free radicals generated as a result of heat stress. In this study we found relevant genes dysregulated in Tharparkar in the direction that can counter heat stress.