Fig 1.
Photograph of white Arbas Cashmere goat and paraffin sections of Cashmere goat skin stained with hematoxylin & eosin.
A. Photograph of a white Arbas Cashmere goat. B. Longitudinal section of goat skin sampled during the short photoperiod (anagen phase). C. Longitudinal section of goat skin sampled during the natural photoperiod (pro-anagen phase). The black arrows indicate the primary hair follicles (PHFs) and secondary hair follicles (SHFs) in the samples. Scale bars: 500 μm.
Table 1.
Primers for real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis of the differentially expressed genes.
Table 2.
Skin thickness, length of the primary and secondary follicles, density of the primary and secondary follicles and diameters of the primary and secondary follicles.
Fig 2.
Hierarchical cluster analysis of the data from the different skin samples of goats raised under short and natural photoperiods.
The color legend is at the bottom of the Fig Red indicates the genes with greater expression relative to the geometric means, and green indicates the genes with lower expression relative to the geometric means. T1, T2, and T3 represent the 3 samples of side skin from goats raised under the short photoperiod, and C1, C2, and C3 represent the 3 samples of skin from goats raised under the natural photoperiod.
Fig 3.
GO classifications for the differentially expressed genes.
Differentially expressed genes enriched in the following GO terms are indicated: biological processes, cellular components, and molecular function.
Table 3.
Genes associated with the growth cycle of the hair follicle that are up-regulated in the Cashmere goat under the short photoperiod compared with natural conditions.
Table 4.
Genes associated with the growth cycle of the hair follicle that are down-regulated in the Cashmere goat under the short photoperiod compared with natural conditions.
Fig 4.
qPCR validation of the expressed genes.
For the 3 randomly selected differentially expressed genes, the fold changes of the genes in the short and natural photoperiods were assessed by qPCR (red bar) and compared to those detected in the gene chip microarray (black bar). All Ct values were normalized to GAPDH, and replicates (n = 3) of each sample were run. The P values (T-test) of the Q-PCR data are 0.1096 (keratin 34), 0.0003 (MLN), and 0.0201 (CYP1A1).