Comparative transcriptomic analysis provides insights into high-altitude adaptation

Purpose: High-altitude adaptive evolution of transcription, and the convergence and divergence of transcriptional alteration across species in response to high-altitude environments, is an important topic of broad interest to the general biology community. Our study aims to answer this important biological question. Methods: We generated deep transcriptome data of high- and low- altitude populations across four species: chicken, pig, goat and sheep, as well as high-altitude yak and low-altitude cattle, from six tissues (heart, kidney, liver, lung, skeletal muscle and spleen). Results: Here we provide a comprehensive comparative transcriptome landscape of expression and alternative splicing variation between low- and high-altitude populations across multiple species for distinct tissues. Conclusions: Our data serves a valuable resource for further study on adaptive transcription evolution and identification of candidate adaptive genes. Overall design: RNA-seq data from 138 samples derived from six tissues (heart, kidney, liver, lung, skeletal muscle and spleen) of three unrelated adult females for each of five animals (chicken, pig, cattle/yak, sheep and goat) from high- and low-altitude regions.

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Tang Q, Gu Y, Zhou X, Jin L, Guan J, Liu R, Li J, Long K, Tian S, Che T, Hu S, Liang Y, Yang X, Tao X, Zhong Z, Wang G, Chen X, Li D, Ma J, Wang X, Mai M, Jiang A, Luo X, Lv X, Gladyshev VN, Li X, Li M