Transcriptome data of peripheral white blood cells from beef heifers collected at the time of artificial insemination

Abstract The reproductive performance of heifers within their first breeding season influences the success of beef cattle operations. Therefore, a means to identify infertile and late breeding heifers before the start of the breeding season holds great promise for the future of the beef industry. Pubertal beef heifers were subjected to estrous synchronization and fixed time artificial insemination (FTAI). We collected peripheral blood from the heifers at the time of artificial insemination (AI) and generated RNA sequencing data to characterize the transcriptome of peripheral white blood cells (PWBC). Following insemination, heifers were exposed to natural service for a defined breeding season, and pregnancy was evaluated to classify heifers into one of three groups: AI-pregnant, natural-bred (NB) pregnant, and non-pregnant. The raw transcriptome data of PWBC is available on the NCBI GEO repository (GSE103628) where the reader can also find raw read counts and normalized gene expression data. The normalized data on transcript coverage can be visualized as a genome browser at HeiferFertilityRNAseq.org.