ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutritional Immunology
This article is part of the Research TopicNutrition, Inflammation and Oxidative Stress in Lifestyle-related Chronic DiseaseView all 4 articles
Nutritional supplementation remodels yak 1 cardiac molecular networks through 2 selenoprotein activation and immune 3 quiescence 4
Provisionally accepted
Chen Yiqun
Chaoyun Yang*
Tao LiGuojun ChenYichen WangZiheng Sun
Zhiqiang HuJun Li
Ran GuanJing Wang
Zengwen Huang- Xichang University, Xichang, China
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Abstract: Seasonal nutritional stress during prolonged winters represents a pivotal yet 10 understudied environmental determinant constraining livestock productivity on the 11 Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. While cardiac adaptive mechanisms to chronic hypoxia have 12 been extensively characterized in high-altitude ungulates, the molecular architecture 13 underlying myocardial responses to nutritional perturbation remains largely 14 unexplored. Here, we present the first integrative transcriptomic-proteomic atlas of 15 yak cardiac tissue under differential nutritional regimens. Twelve male Muli yaks were 16 allocated to ad libitum grazing (GRA, n = 18) and winter supplementary feeding (SUP, 17 n = 18) cohorts using a completely randomized design over a 60-day intervention 18 period. Myocardial specimens were interrogated via RNA sequencing and 19 data-independent acquisition mass spectrometry. Differential expression analysis 20 yielded 140 DEGs (48 upregulated, 92 downregulated) and 254 DEPs (79 upregulated, 21 175 downregulated). Nine-quadrant integration across 4,080 cognate gene-protein 22 pairs unveiled a striking decoupling between transcriptional and translational 23 landscapes: merely 3.4% exhibited concordant directionality, whereas 87.3% 24 manifested protein-exclusive alterations, implicating post-transcriptional governance 25 as the predominant regulatory paradigm. The selenoproteome emerged as a 26 convergent nodal point, with GPX1 (mRNA/protein log₂FC: +0.73/+1.89) and 27 SELENOW (+2.11/+3.00) demonstrating coordinated bi-level induction. Reciprocally, 28 stress-responsive immunosurveillance effectors including ULBP13 (mRNA log₂FC = 29 −10.24) and GZMB (protein log₂FC = −1.50) underwent pronounced attenuation. 30 GPX1 and SELENOW exhibited flawless discriminatory capacity (AUC = 1.00) 31 across both molecular strata. Collectively, these findings delineate a previously 32 unrecognized regulatory axis whereby nutritional rehabilitation orchestrates 33 myocardial molecular homeostasis through selenoprotein-mediated redox fortification 34 coupled with immunoquiescent reprogramming, positioning GPX1 and SELENOW as 35 robust sentinel biomarkers for nutritional status surveillance in high-altitude 36 ruminants.
Keywords: Muli yak, Multi-omics integration, Myocardial adaptation, Nutritional stress, post-transcriptional regulation, Selenoproteome
Received: 17 Dec 2025; Accepted: 26 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Yiqun, Yang, Li, Chen, Wang, Sun, Hu, Li, Guan, Wang and Huang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Chaoyun Yang
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