Identification and functional prediction of long intergenic noncoding RNAs in fetal porcine longissimus dorsi muscle

Pigs are globally farmed animals which provide protein for human consumption in the form of skeletal muscle. To better understand the function of long intergenic noncoding RNAs(linc RNAs) in porcine skeletal muscle growth and development, we collected RNA-seq data from porcine longissimus dorsi muscle(LDM) during embryonic development. We identified a total of 739 linc RNA transcripts, which were distributed on all chromosomes except the chromosome Y, and analyzed their molecular characteristics. Compared to protein-coding genes, linc RNAs showed shorter transcripts, longer exons, fewer exons and higher tissue specificity. In addition, the abundance of linc RNAs in five embryonic development stages were analyzed and 45 differentially expressed linc RNAs were screened, three of which were highly expressed in LDM during porcine embryonic development. Finally, we predicted the potential target genes and functions of the linc RNAs, and identified 1 537 cis-target genes and 8 571 trans-target genes. Furthermore, we identified two key candidate linc RNAs involved in muscle development, XLOC_024652 and XLOC_001832, for post-trial validation. Our results provide a genome-wide resource of linc RNAs which are potentially involved in porcine embryonic skeletal muscle development and lay a foundation for the further study of their functions.