Whole transcriptome analysis reveals the key genes and noncoding RNAs related to follicular atresia in broilers.

Broodiness, a maternal behavior, is accompanied by the atresia of follicles and the serious degradation of poultry reproductive performance. The comparison of follicles between brooding and laying hens is usually an ideal model for exploring the regulation mechanism of follicle atresia. In this study, we selected three brooding hens and three laying hens to collect their follicles for whole transcriptome sequencing. The results demonstrated different expression patterns between the follicles of brooding hens and laying hens. In the top 10 differentially expressed genes with the highest expression, was relatively low expressed in the follicles of brooding hens, but other nine genes were relatively highly expressed, including , , , , , , , , and . While miR-21-3p, miR-146a-5p, miR-142-5p and miR-1b-3p were highly expressed in the follicles of brooding hen, miR-106-5p, miR-451, miR-183, miR-7, miR-2188-5p and miR-182-5p were lowly expressed in brooding hen. In addition, we identified 124 lncRNAs specifically expressed in the follicles of brooding hens and 147 lncRNAs specifically expressed in the follicles of laying hens. Our results may provide a theoretical basis for further exploration of the molecular mechanism of broodiness in broilers.