Plant & Animal Genomes XIX Conference

January 15-19, 2011
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Characterization Of MiRNA From Subcutaneous Adipose Tissue Of Grizzly Bears (Ursus arctos horriblis)

Jennifer J. Michal¹ , Charles T. Robbins² , O. Lynne Nelson³ , Zhihua Jiang¹

¹  Department of Animal Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA

²  Department of Natural Resource Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA

³  Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA

To accomplish global microRNA (miRNA) discovery in subcutaneous adipose tissue of grizzly bears, small-RNA library construction, deep sequencing and initial data analyses were conducted at LC Sciences (Houston, TX). There is limited information available for the grizzly bear genome; therefore, since members of Ursidae evolved from the dog family roughly 20 – 25 million years ago, the Canis lupus familiaris genome was used as a reference. Of the more than 13 million raw reads, 25,537 unique sequences were mapped in miRbase. A total of 983 unique miRNAs were identified. Of these, 382 aligned to dog miRNAs while 48 sequences mapped to miRNAs of other mammalian species, but were novel to the dog genome. Sixty-two sequences were mapped to known precursor miRNA (mir) and miRNA locations in the dog and other mammalian genomes, but they also aligned to other locations in the dog genome. There were 542 novel miRNA candidates; 398 of these could form hairpins and aligned to the dog genome but did not map to mirs of any mammalian species. Twenty-seven unique sequences were mapped to mirs and genomes of mammalian species, not including the dog, and 117 mapped to known mammalian miRNAs but were not aligned to the dog genome. In summary, analyses showed that many grizzly bear miRNA are conserved among canine and other mammalian species. These data can be utilized to understand the transcriptional and translational changes that occur in hibernating species, and can also be used to study species evolution.