Work

The blood transcriptome of musk deer under heat stress condition reveals the regulatory mechanism of genes to maintain homeostasis metabolism

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Heat stress has a significant adverse impact on both livestock and poultry production, posing a considerable challenge to the artificial breeding of forest musk deer. However, there is a lack of studies on the heat stress of forest musk deer, so it is necessary to understand the effects of temperature and humidity index (THI) variation on these animals. RESULTS: concentration exhibited a negatively correlated with THI (r = -0.959, Pr = 0.041). Blood urea nitrogen (BUN) concentration in July (G3) was significantly lower than that in April (G1) and June (G2) (P < 0.05). The total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC) in July was significantly decreased (P < 0.05), and the creatine kinase (CK) was significantly higher than that in April and August. There was a significant positive correlation between immunoglobulin G (IgG) and THI (r = 0.999, Pr = 0.001) attributable to the significant increase of TNF-α in July (P < 0.05). The transcriptomic comparison between G1 and G3 revealed the largest number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) (6410 up-regulated and 472 down-regulated). Among them, JAK1, AP3B1 and FKBP15 were the most significantly up-regulated immune-related genes in response to heat stress. Trend analysis indicated that the pathways related to immunity and protein metabolism were particularly impacted by heat stress. CONCLUSIONS: Research indicates that heat stress disrupts the normal metabolism of forest musk deer and adversely affects their immune system, which is attributed to the THI exceeding the threshold that forest musk deer can tolerate. The findings of this study provide valuable data support for the scientific breeding of captive forest musk deer and enhance the understanding of the immune dynamics of ruminants under heat stress.

Source: BMC Genomics

DOI: 10.1186/s12864-025-11577-y