Comparison of prenatal muscle tissue expression profiles of two pig breeds differing in muscle characteristics1

Abstract

The objective of this study was to compare purebred Duroc and Pietrain prenatal muscle tissue transcriptome expression levels at different stages of prenatal development to gain insight into the differences in muscle tissue development in these pig breeds. Commercial western pig breeds have been selected for muscle growth for the past 2 decades. Pig breeds differ for their muscle phenotypes (i.e., myofiber numbers and myofiber types). Duroc and Pietrain pig breeds are extremes; Duroc pigs have redder muscle fiber types with more intramuscular fat, and Pietrain pigs have faster-growing and whiter muscle fiber types. Pietrain pigs are more muscular than Duroc pigs, whereas Duroc pigs are fatter than Pietrain pigs. The genomic background underlying these breed-specific differences is poorly known. Myogenesis is a complex exclusive prenatal process involving proliferation and differentiation (i.e., fusion) of precursor cells called myoblasts. We investigated the difference in the prenatal muscle-specific transcriptome profiles of Duroc and Pietrain pigs using microarray technology. The microarray contained more than 500 genes affecting myogenesis, energy metabolism, muscle structural genes, and other genes from a porcine muscle cDNA library. The results indicated that the expression of the myogenesis-related genes was greater in early Duroc embryos than in early Pietrain embryos (14 to 49 d of gestation), whereas the opposite was found in late embryos (63 to 91 d of gestation). These findings suggest that the myogenesis process is more intense in early Duroc embryos than in Pietrain embryos but that myogenesis is more intense in late Pietrain fetuses than in Duroc fetuses. Transcriptomes of muscle structural genes followed that pattern. The energy metabolism genes were expressed at a higher level in prenatal Pietrain pigs than in prenatal Duroc pigs, except for d 35, when the opposite situation was found. Fatty acid metabolism genes were expressed at a higher level in early (14 to 49 d of gestation) Duroc embryos than in Pietrain embryos. Better understanding of the genomic regulation of tissue formation leads to improved knowledge of the genome under selection and may lead to directed breed-specific changes in the future.

Invited review: Measurable biomarkers linked to meat quality from different pig production systems

“…We studied the transcriptome expression in porcine longissimus dorsi muscles of Duroc pigs. The results showed that especially the primary wave of prenatal muscle fibre formation is strongly genetically regulated, while the secondary muscle fibre formation is associated with much less differential gene expression (te Pas et al, 2005;Cagnazzo et al, 2006). This is in agreement with the fact that the secondary muscle fibre formation can be regulated with feed, while the primary muscle fibre formation cannot be affected Stickland et al, 2004;reviewed in Rehfeldt et al, 2011a, b).…”

“…These findings suggest that the primary myogenesis process is more intense in Duroc than in Pietrain embryos but that the secondary myogenesis that occurs later during gestation is more intense in Pietrain foetuses than in Duroc foetuses (Cagnazzo et al, 2006). These results were confirmed by Davoli et al (2011) using PCR tests.…”

The mRNA Expression Pattern of Skeletal Muscle Regulatory Factors in Divergent Phenotype Swine Breeds

“…23 . Here, we reported the mRNA expression of three MRFs, two paired box and two bone morphogenetic protein gene.…”

Recent advances in cattle functional genomics and their application to beef quality

“…Efforts to characterise the histological phenotype of the tissue alongside the gene expression phenotype will go some way towards addressing these issues. Notwithstanding these limitations, gene and protein expression profiling approaches have been directed at muscle of cattle (Table 4) and other livestock species, such as the pig (Lin and Hsu, 2005;Plastow et al, 2005;Cagnazzo et al, 2006). Some recent insights into bovine muscle biology that have been obtained by cattle muscle profiling are described, as follows.…”