China Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine ›› 2022, Vol. 49 ›› Issue (4): 1287-1294.doi: 10.16431/j.cnki.1671-7236.2022.04.010

• Physiological and Biochemical • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Research Progress in Function of Snail Family Genes

LI Qilong, CHEN Xiangnan, LONG Feng, CHEN Jiayue, YANG Sen, WANG Jing, ZAN Linsen, CHENG Gong   

  1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
  • Received:2021-10-13 Online:2022-04-05 Published:2022-03-25

Abstract: Snail family genes encode transcription factors with zinc finger structure,which participate in many physiological levels by combining downstream genes,and have a wide range of biological functions in epithelial-mesenchymal transformation,embryonic development,immune regulation,cancer cell migration and so on.Snail family genes are involved in the process of fat production and fat metabolism.At the same time,they are also the downstream target genes of myogenesis determinant (MyoD),and may also be involved in the regulation of muscle development.Therefore,Snail family genes play an important role in adipogenesis,muscle development and lipid metabolism,and they are important candidate functional genes affecting meat production performance and meat quality of mammals,especially agricultural animals.The author introduces the structure and basic biological function of Snail family genes,briefly describes the regulation mode of Snail family involved in Wnt/β-catenin,Notch and other signal pathways,and summarizes the role and regulation mode of Snail family genes in mammalian adipogenesis and muscle development.However,the role of Snail family genes in mammalian adipogenesis and muscle development remains to be further studied.On the other hand,it is generally believed that the Snail family,which plays a role of transcriptional inhibition,has also been found to have transcriptional activation in recent years,but how to achieve this effect is still unknown.Therefore,the future research direction is the synergism of Snail family genes in the regulation of animal adipogenesis and muscle development,the dynamic regulation of adipogenesis and fat hydrolysis and their transcriptional activation.This review lays a foundation for analyzing the genetic regulation mechanism of Snail family genes in the formation of meat quality traits.

Key words: Snail family gene; biological function; signal pathway; adipose development; muscle development

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