MiR-1434 Regulates Abdominal Preadipocytes Differentiation and Adipogenesis by Targeting IGFBP2 in Chickens

High-intensity selection has dramatically increased growth rate and daily weight gain in broilers, but the accompanying problem is the excessive deposition of abdominal fat. According to our previous transcriptome analysis, insulin-like growth factor binding protein 2 ( IGFBP2 ) and miR-1434 were identified as involved in abdominal fat. In this study, we further investigated their function in the proliferation and differentiation of chicken preadipocytes. The results indicated that overexpression of IGFBP2 promoted the proliferation and differentiation of preadipocytes, while interference of IGFBP2 inhibited cell proliferation and lipogenic differentiation. The regulatory effect of miR-1434 on the proliferation and differentiation of preadipocytes was opposite to that of IGFBP2 . Dual-luciferase reporter assay proved that miR-1434 directly binds to the 3'-untranslated region (3'UTR) of IGFBP2 . As expected, the miR-1434 mimics eliminated the impact of the overexpression vector of IGFBP2 on preadipocytes. In brief, we revealed that miR-1434 promoted the proliferation and differentiation of preadipocytes by blocking IGFBP2 expression, thus impacting deposition in broilers. These findings may provide a novel target for improving chicken meat quality.