Understanding the genetic changes underlying phenotypic variation in sheep (Ovis aries) may facilitate our efforts towards further improvement. Here, we report the deep resequencing of 248 sheep including the wild ancestor (O. orientalis), landraces, and improved breeds. We explored the sheep variome and selection signatures. We detected genomic regions harboring genes associated with distinct morphological and agronomic traits, which may be past and potential future targets of domestication, breeding, and selection. Furthermore, we found non-synonymous mutations in a set of plausible candidate genes and significant differences in their allele frequency distributions across breeds. We identified PDGFD as a likely causal gene for fat deposition in the tails of sheep through transcriptome, RT-PCR, qPCR, and Western blot analyses. Our results provide insights into the demographic history of sheep and a valuable genomic resource for future genetic studies and improved genome-assisted breeding of sheep and other domestic animals.

Ferroptosis is a metabolic disorder of lipid oxides in cells, which leads to abnormal metabolism under the catalysis of iron, which produces an expansive number of lipids, wrecks the redox in cells, attacks biological macromolecules and triggers cell death. This death process was marked by the increase of cytoplasmic and lipid reactive oxygen species, the decrease of mitochondria and the higher density of mitochondrial membrane. Non‐coding RNA (ncRNA) is a kind of small RNA molecules found in recent years, which can transcribe but do not encode proteins and have specific functions. These ncRNAs play a key role in controlling gene expression by combining with proteins or other molecules to turn genes on or off. Ferroptosis is viewed as a leap forward in the medication of tumors and some intractable maladies. Under the circumstances that there are still many mysteries in the study of ferroptosis, the research on the role of ncRNAs in ferroptosis is even less. By consulting the pertinent literature, this article reviews the research advance about ncRNAs on ferroptosis, which provides a new research direction and ideas for the study of ferroptosis.

Background: Variation within the C1QTNF6 gene at 22q12.3, the RAC2 gene at 22q13.1, and an intergenic region at 14q32.2 were found to be associated with risk to Graves' disease (GD) in a recent study. We aimed to validate these associations with GD in an independent sample set of Han Chinese population. Methods: We investigated these associations by genotyping the most significantly associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located in these three regions. Rs1456988 within the intergenic region at 14q32.2, rs229527 within C1QTNF6 at 22q12.3, and rs2284038 within RAC2 at 22q13.1 were selected for genotyping. These three SNPs were genotyped using a case-control study that included 2382 GD patients and 3092 unrelated healthy controls from Northern Han Chinese ancestry. The genotyping was performed using TaqMan assays on the ABI7900 platform. Results: We found both the rs229527 allele within C1QTNF6 (odds ratio [OR] = 1.23, confidence interval [95% CI]: 1.12-1.33, p _Allelic = 4.60 × 10 ⁻⁶ ) and the rs2284038 allele within RAC2 (OR = 1.10, 95% CI: 1.01-0.19, p _Allelic = 3.00 × 10 ⁻² ) showed significant associations with GD susceptibility. However, rs1456988 located in 14q32.2 (OR = 1.08, 95% CI: 0.99-1.16, p _Allelic = 7.01 × 10 ⁻² ) showed no association. Analysis of models of inheritance suggested that both the dominant and recessive models showed significant associations for rs229527 (OR = 1.24, 95% CI: 1.13-1.38, p _Dominant = 9.90 × 10 ⁻⁵ ; OR = 1.49, 95% CI: 1.19-1.86, p _Recessive = 3.90 × 10 ⁻⁴ ), with the dominant model being preferred. For rs2284038, the recessive model was preferred (OR = 1.18, 95% CI: 1.00-1.40, p _Recessive = 4.76 × 10 ⁻² ), whereas analysis of dominant model showed no association (OR = 1.10, 95% CI: 0.98-1.22, p _Dominant = 0.10). Conclusions: Our findings confirmed that chromosome 22q12.3 and 22q13.1 variants are associated with GD in an independent Han Chinese population; however, 14q32.2 showed no association with GD.