Project description:To further knowledge of piglet maturity, we have developed a microarray analysis to describe biological processes and to find candidate genes for key roles in piglet maturity. The objective was to identify which genes and biological processes are specifically involved in the difference between two extreme breeds: Large White (LW) and Meishan (MS). The LW breed is a selected breed known to show an increased rate of mortality at birth, while the MS breed presents more robust piglets at birth. MS and LW sows were inseminated with mixed semen (LW and MS) hence each litter was composed of pure fetuses (LW or MS) and crossed fetuses (LWMS from MS sows and MSLW from LW sows). To assay for changes in gene expression during piglet maturity, mRNA was isolated from 61 fetal skeletal muscle samples with 8 different conditions: two fetal gestational ages (90 or 110 days of gestation), associated with four genotypes (two extreme breeds for mortality at birth (MS and LW) and two crossed breeds (MSLW and LWMS)). MS fetuses are known to have a better survival at birth than LW fetuses. An understanding of maturity is possible with the comparison between the fetal gestational ages and between the two extreme breeds. The impact of parental genotypes is studied with the presence of crossed fetuses. After quality control and normalization, only 61 samples were conserved (represented here).
Project description:To further knowledge of piglet maturity, we have developed a microarray analysis to describe biological processes and to find candidate genes for key roles in piglet maturity. The objective was to identify which genes and biological processes are specifically involved in the difference between two extreme breeds: Large White (LW) and Meishan (MS). The LW breed is a selected breed known to show an increased rate of mortality at birth, while the MS breed presents more robust piglets at birth. MS and LW sows were inseminated with mixed semen (LW and MS) hence each litter was composed of pure fetuses (LW or MS) and crossed fetuses (LWMS from MS sows and MSLW from LW sows).
Project description:To further knowledge of piglet maturity, we have developed a microarray analysis to describe biological processes and to find candidate genes for key roles in piglet maturity. The objective was to identify which genes and biological processes are specifically involved in the difference between two extreme breeds: Large White (LW) and Meishan (MS). The LW breed is a selected breed known to show an increased rate of mortality at birth, while the MS breed presents more robust piglets at birth. MS and LW sows were inseminated with mixed semen (LW and MS) hence each litter was composed of pure fetuses (LW or MS) and crossed fetuses (LWMS from MS sows and MSLW from LW sows).
Project description:Comparing the intestinal transcriptome of Meishan and Large White piglets during late fetal development reveals genes involved in glucose and lipid metabolism and immunity as valuable clues of intestinal maturity
Project description:Large White and Meishan pigs were either non-treated or injected with mammalian 1-24 ACTH (Immediate Synachten, Novartis France) at the dose of 250 µg per animal. Pigs were sacrificed either immediately after capture from their home cage (non-treated animals) or 1 hour following ACTH injection. Adrenal glands were immediately collected from pigs and frozen on dry ice and then stored at -80°C until RNA isolation. Keywords: stress response, adrenal, gene expression, pig
Project description:BACKGROUND:In animal breeding, identification of causative genetic variants is of major importance and high economical value. Usually, the number of candidate variants exceeds the number of variants that can be validated. One way of prioritizing probable candidates is by evaluating their potential to have a deleterious effect, e.g. by predicting their consequence. Due to experimental difficulties to evaluate variants that do not cause an amino-acid substitution, other prioritization methods are needed. For human genomes, the prediction of deleterious genomic variants has taken a step forward with the introduction of the combined annotation dependent depletion (CADD) method. In theory, this approach can be applied to any species. Here, we present pCADD (p for pig), a model to score single nucleotide variants (SNVs) in pig genomes. RESULTS:To evaluate whether pCADD captures sites with biological meaning, we used transcripts from miRNAs and introns, sequences from genes that are specific for a particular tissue, and the different sites of codons, to test how well pCADD scores differentiate between functional and non-functional elements. Furthermore, we conducted an assessment of examples of non-coding and coding SNVs, which are causal for changes in phenotypes. Our results show that pCADD scores discriminate between functional and non-functional sequences and prioritize functional SNVs, and that pCADD is able to score the different positions in a codon relative to their redundancy. Taken together, these results indicate that based on pCADD scores, regions with biological relevance can be identified and distinguished according to their rate of adaptation. CONCLUSIONS:We present the ability of pCADD to prioritize SNVs in the pig genome with respect to their putative deleteriousness, in accordance to the biological significance of the region in which they are located. We created scores for all possible SNVs, coding and non-coding, for all autosomes and the X chromosome of the pig reference sequence Sscrofa11.1, proposing a toolbox to prioritize variants and evaluate sequences to highlight new sites of interest to explain biological functions that are relevant to animal breeding.
Project description:Large White and Meishan pigs were either non-treated or injected with mammalian 1-24 ACTH (Immediate Synachten, Novartis France) at the dose of 250 µg per animal. Pigs were sacrificed either immediately after capture from their home cage (non-treated animals) or 1 hour following ACTH injection. Adrenal glands were immediately collected from pigs and frozen on dry ice and then stored at -80°C until RNA isolation. Keywords: stress response, adrenal, gene expression, pig 47 samples