CircCEP85L Regulates the Proliferation and Myogenic Differentiation of Bovine MuSCs

At present, studies have proved that circRNA plays important roles in the development of bovine muscle, but its molecular regulation mechanism remain elusive. Screening circRNAs related to bovine muscle development can lay a foundation for further elucidating the molecular mechanism of bovine muscle development.

In this study, RNA-seq sequencing results of proliferating (GM) and myogenic differentiation (DM) yellow bovine muscle stem cells (MuSCs) analyzed in the previous stage were used to screen for significantly differentially expressed circRNA, circCEP85L. Tissue samples of heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, muscle, intestine and stomach were collected aseptically from fresh yellow fetal calves, and yellow muscle stem cells were isolated and cultured and induced into myogenic differentiation. GM and DM cells cultured in vitro from yellow calves were collected, RNA was extracted and reverse transcribed into cDNA, respectively. Quantitative real time PCR (qRT-PCR) was used to detect the expression of circCEP85L in different tissues and different cell states. Meanwhile, specific primers were designed to amplify the full length of circCEP85L, and the overexpression vector p-circCEP85L was constructed. The plasmid was transfected into MuSCs and overexpressed circCEP85L cell samples were collected. Using overexpression plasmid pCD5-ciR cell samples as control, qRT-PCR, flow cytometry, Western Blot and immunofluorescence were used to detect the effects of overexpression of circCEP85L on proliferation, apoptosis and myogenic differentiation of yellow bovine MuSCs.

The electrophoresis of PCR product proved the existence of circCEP85L. CircCEP85L was expressed in various tissues, and the expression level in DM stage was significantly higher than that in GM stage (P<0.001). To further investigate the effect on circCEP85L scallion MuSCs. The overexpression vector p-circCEP85L was transfected with the control vector pCD5-ciR in vitro cultured yellow bovine MuSCs and the EdU results showed that overexpression of circCEP85L significantly reduced the proportion of EdU positive cells (P<0.001) after continuing the culture for 24 h. Flow cycle analysis showed that overexpression of circCEP85L increased the proportion of cells in G0/G1 phase and significantly decreased the proportion of cells in S phase (P<0.001). Flow cytometry showed that overexpression of circCEP85L significantly inhibited the apoptosis rate of MuSCs (P<0.05). qRT-PCR and western blot were used to detect the expression of proliferation and apoptosis-related genes in MuSCs, respectively. The results showed that overexpression of circCEP85L significantly reduced the mRNA expression levels of proliferation and apoptosis-related genes in bovine MuSCs (P<0.001), and the expression of apoptotic protein BAX was also significantly reduced (P<0.01). In addition, in order to detect the effect of circCEP85L overexpression on myogenic differentiation of cattle MuSCs, the differentiation medium was replaced 24 hours after transfection to induce cell differentiation. Western blot and immunofluorescence results showed that overexpression of circCEP85L significantly promoted the expression level of differentiation marker gene MyH6 (P<0.001), and the number and size of myotubes formed by cell fusion were significantly higher than those of the control group.

The results of this study indicate that circCEP85L affects the growth and development process of skeletal muscle in cattle by inhibiting the proliferation and apoptosis of MuSCs and promoting myogenic differentiation of cells, which is expected to be a key circRNA for subsequent mechanistic studies to regulate the growth and development process of skeletal muscle in cattle.