Important changes occur during the lactation cycle of marsupials in terms of mammary gland development, milk production, milk composition as well as development or behaviour of the young. A number of potential new milk proteins or mammary gland remodelling markers, including noncoding RNAs have been identified.Īfter a short gestation period, marsupials give birth to a relatively immature newborn that is totally dependant on milk for growth and development during a relatively long lactation period. In addition, genes involved in immune function, translation and energy or anabolic metabolism are expressed across the lactation cycle. Results show a steady increase in expression of genes coding for secreted protein during the lactation cycle that is associated with high proportion of transcripts coding for milk proteins. Sequence data from pregnant and early or late lactating specific cDNA libraries and, data from early or late lactation massively parallel sequencing strategies were combined to analyse the variation of milk protein gene expression during the lactation cycle. Sequence analysis and sequence assembly were used to construct a comprehensive catalogue of mammary transcripts. A total of 14,837 express sequence tags were produced by cDNA sequencing. In order to investigate gene expression in the marsupial mammary gland during lactation, a comprehensive set of cDNA libraries was derived from lactating tissues throughout the lactation cycle of the tammar wallaby. Marsupials, such as the tammar wallaby ( Macropus eugenii) give birth to a relatively immature newborn and progressive changes in milk composition and milk production regulate early stage development of the young. Lactation is an important aspect of mammalian biology and, amongst mammals, marsupials show one of the most complex lactation cycles.
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