MyoD expression profile and developmental differences of leg and breast muscle in Peking duck (Anas platyrhynchos Domestica) during embryonic to neonatal stages.

In order to investigate the developmental differences between the duck breast muscle and leg muscle tissues during the embryonic stage to neonatal stages, as well as the expression profile of MyoD between the two muscle tissues, the morphologic characteristics in the two muscle tissues during duck embryo stages at E14, E18, E22, E27 and D7 were compared through the muscle paraffin sections. The coding domain sequence of duck MyoD gene was cloned, and then the expression of MyoD in duck leg muscle and breast muscle during embryo stage on E10, E14, E18, E22, E27 and D7 was detected using qRT-PCR method. Results showed that the developmental status of the duck breast muscle in embryonic phrases lag behind that of leg muscle. The CDS of duck MyoD gene consists of 894 nucleotides, and showed relatively high similarity with the gene of other species. The MyoD mRNA expressed in both kinds of muscle tissues and the expression profile had a similar trend, although the expression level of MyoD in the breast muscle was significantly higher than that in the leg muscle at each developmental stages (p<0.05). Results suggested that MyoD might have potential functions in controlling muscle fiber phenotype during the secondary myogenesis of muscle development. These fundamental works may provide some valuable clues for knowing the roles of MyoD in the myogenesis and the muscle fiber type differentiation in birds.