Fig. 3.

Functional enrichment analysis of significantly up- and down-regulated DEGs. a Gene Ontology (GO) analysis of significantly up-regulated DEGs. GO terms revealed that significantly up-regulated genes might relate to lactation-associated processes, including calcium ion binding, negative regulation of cell growth and proliferation, gene expression, etc. b GO analysis of down-regulated DEGs revealed that those genes might play an important role in cell division, intracellular signal transduction chemokine-mediated, and cell surface receptor signaling pathways, etc. c KEGG pathway enrichment analysis of significantly up- and down-regulated DEGs. KEGG terms, including cell cycle, cell adhesion molecules (CAMs), cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, cAMP, calcium, and Wnt, PPAR, PI3K-Akt, TNF, cytokine-cytokine pathways, etc. d Cluster analysis of some lactation-related genes by using heat map. The genes in red box located in PI3K-Akt signaling pathway. Similarly, the genes in green box were in PPAR signaling pathway