Testis-specific changes in gene expression of post-pubertal beef bulls divergent for residual feed intake and exposure to different pre-natal diets
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Context Selection for residual feed intake (RFI) and its impact on male reproductive development has had mixed reviews in the past. Our previous studies demonstrated earlier puberty, larger testes and greater percentage of progressively motile sperm in high-RFI bulls. However, the molecular mechanisms within testes of bulls with varying RFI remain unclear. Aims To determine the effect of RFI and pre-natal diet on the expression patterns of testicular genes and use this information to explain differences observed across RFI. Methods The study included 25 purebred-Angus bulls with a genetic background of either high or low RFI and fed either normal or low pre-natal nutrition from 30 to 150 days post conception. After slaughter (17 months), testicular tissue was recovered, and RNA was extracted and sequenced. Key results Of 19 218 expressed genes, 17 were differentially expressed for RFI (including PLCD1, INPP4B), with no differences being observed for pre-natal diet or diet × RFI interaction (false discovery rate) < 0.1%). KEGG pathway analysis indicated that differentially expressed genes were associated with inositol phosphate metabolism, and phosphatidylinositol signalling. On the basis of a candidate gene-expression study, IGF1R was upregulated in high-RFI bulls (P < 0.1). Conclusions Increased expression of IGF1R and lowered PLCD1 and INPP4B expression could activate PI3K–Akt signalling responsible for cell growth, proliferation and steroid metabolism in high-RFI bulls. Implications Selecting bulls for feed efficiency might affect molecular networks associated with reproduction and fertility.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".