• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.53-62
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• 2014

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between fertility and protein pattern change using in vitro fertilization, analysis of sperm characteristics and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis in different pig types. In results, the viability and mitochondria integrity of sperm were higher significantly (p<0.05) but the portions of acrosome reaction was lower significantly (p<0.05) in Duroc and $F_1$ (potbellied ${\times}$ PWG miniature pig) than PWG miniature. On in vitro fertilization to investigate fertility, the fertility of $F_1$ semen war higher significantly (p<0.05) than in Duroc and PWG miniature pig. On the other hand, protein patterns showed similar function among the different boar semen. Especially, the heat shock 70 kDa 1-like and G patch domain-containing protein 4 were significantly (p<0.05) higher expressed in $F_1$ than in Duroc and PWG miniature pig. The proteins associated with mitochondria in Duroc were significantly (p<0.05) higher expressed than in $F_1$ and PWG miniature pig. The developmental rates to blastocyst stage of oocytes fertilized with sperm of $F_1$ pig were significantly (p<0.05) higher than in PWG miniature pig. However, phosphoglycerate kinase 2 and zinc finger protein 431 were significantly (p<0.05) higher expressed in PWG miniature pig than in $F_1$ and Duroc pigs. In conclusion, the results of the present study indicate that different proteins were expressed in different pig types, and were associated with a sperm functions and embryo development.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.622-626
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• 2007

Using multi-trait animal model BLUP, selection was conducted over seven generations for growth rate (DG), real-time ultrasound loin-eye muscle area (LEA), backfat thickness (BF), and intramuscular fat content (IMF) to develop a new line of purebred Duroc pigs with enhanced meat production and meat quality. This study was intended to investigate the relationship between restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) of a heart fatty acid-binding protein (H-FABP) gene and intramuscular fat content (IMF) of this Duroc purebred population. The present experiment examined the RFLP of 499 slaughtered pigs. The DNA was separated from the blood or ear tissue of the pigs, which were slaughtered at 105 kg of body weight. Intramuscular fat content of the longissimus muscle was measured using chemical analysis. A significant difference was detected in the breeding value of IMF among the H-FABP PCR RFLP genotypes. The AA genotype has a significantly larger positive effect on the IMF breeding value than do the Aa and aa genotypes for the MspI RFLP. In addition, the DD genotype has a significantly greater positive effect on IMF breeding value than the Dd and dd genotypes for the HaeIII RFLP. For the HinfI RFLP, the hh genotype has a significantly larger positive effect on IMF breeding value than the HH genotype. Multiple regression analysis was performed using the IMF breeding values as the dependent variable and the three H-FABP genotypes as independent variables. Results revealed that the contribution of the genotypes to variation in IMF breeding values was approximately 40%. These results demonstrated that H-FABP RFLPs affect IMF in this Duroc population.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.143-150
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• 1991

The data on reproductive performance of 1065 purebred Landrace, 1254 purebred Yorkshire. 553 purebred Duroc and 327 purebred Pietrain sows bred to farrow purebred litters and data from 3413 Landrace $\times$ Yorkshire, 487 Duroc $\times$ Pietrain and 3191 commericial litters were udsed in this study. The data were collected form litters farrowed form January 1986 to December 1988 in Holiday Hills Stock and Breeding Farms, San Prero, Laguna. The crossbred sows and litters were better in most traits associated with sow productivity than their contemporary purebred sows and litters. The Duroc $\times$ Pietrain crossbred litters showed 16.67% improvement in litter size at weaning, 10.11% improvement in survival rate form birth to weaning and 16.21% more pigs per sow pre year than the averages of their parental breeds. The litters from the Landrace $\times$ Yorkshire crossbred sows sired by either Duroc or Duroc $\times$ Pietrain boars had 11.01% bigger litter size at birth, 20.74% increase in litter size at weaning and 22.86% more pigs weaned per sow per year than the averages of the four parental breeds. Very little improvement in most traits evaluated were observed form the Landrace $\times$ Yorkshire crossbred litters compared with their parental breeds. Year of birth of litter had litter influence on sow productivity. However, the reproductivity performance declined when sows farrowed in June up to September. The best Months of farrowing were found to be from January to April. The breed $\times$ year, breed $\times$ month and year $\times$ month had no significant effects on all traits evaluated.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.584-591
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• 2015

This study characterized the fecal bacterial community structure and inter-individual variation in 30-week-old Duroc pigs, which are known for their excellent meat quality. Pyrosequencing of the V1-V3 hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA genes generated 108,254 valid reads and 508 operational taxonomic units at a 95% identity cut-off (genus level). Bacterial diversity and species richness as measured by the Shannon diversity index were significantly greater than those reported previously using denaturation gradient gel electrophoresis; thus, this study provides substantial information related to both known bacteria and the untapped portion of unclassified bacteria in the population. The bacterial composition of Duroc pig fecal samples was investigated at the phylum, class, family, and genus levels. Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes predominated at the phylum level, while Clostridia and Bacteroidia were most abundant at the class level. This study also detected prominent inter-individual variation starting at the family level. Among the core microbiome, which was observed at the genus level, Prevotella was consistently dominant, as well as a bacterial phylotype related to Oscillibacter valericigenes, a valerate producer. This study found high bacterial diversity and compositional variation among individuals of the same breed line, as well as high abundance of unclassified bacterial phylotypes that may have important functions in the growth performance of Duroc pigs.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.151-156
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• 2003

This study was carried out to get a fundamental information for improvement of reproductive performance in gilt. We investigated the effects of breeds on body weight, age, body length, wither's height, girth and backfat thickness, and the serum concentrations of estradiol-17${\beta}$, cortisol and progesterone at first estrus and mating of gilts. A total of 47 gilts of Duroc, Landrace and Yorkshire, produced at Livestock Experiment Station, Chungnam livestock sanitation research institute from 2000 through 2002, were used for this experiment. Body weight, age and girth of Duroc at frist estrus and mating were higher than those of Landrace and Yorkshire. There were no differences on body length among the three breeds at frist and mating. Wither's height of Duroc and Yorkshire at first estrus and mating was higher than that of Landrace. Backfat thickness of Yorkshire was thinnest among the three breeds at first estrus, but there were no differences on backfat thickness among the three breeds at first mating. Serum estradiol-17${\beta}$ concentration of Landrace(45.0 pg/ml) at first estrus was higher than that of Yorkshire(27.4 pg/ml) and Duroc(21.8 pg/ml), but there were no differences on estradiol-17${\beta}$ concentration (from 18.5 to 31.9 pg/ml) among the three breeds at first mating. Serum cortisol concentration of Duroc at first esturs and mating was higher than that of Landrace and Yorkshire. There were no differences on serum progesterone concentration among the three breeds at first estrus and mating of gilt.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.137-145
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• 2015

Selective sweep can cause genetic differentiation across populations, which allows for the identification of possible causative regions/genes underlying important traits. The pig has experienced a long history of allele frequency changes through artificial selection in the domestication process. We obtained an average of 329,482,871 sequence reads for 24 pigs from three pig breeds: Yorkshire (n = 5), Landrace (n = 13), and Duroc (n = 6). An average read depth of 11.7 was obtained using whole-genome resequencing on an Illumina HiSeq2000 platform. In this study, cross-population extended haplotype homozygosity and cross-population composite likelihood ratio tests were implemented to detect genes experiencing positive selection for the genome-wide resequencing data generated from three commercial pig breeds. In our results, 26, 7, and 14 genes from Yorkshire, Landrace, and Duroc, respectively were detected by two kinds of statistical tests. Significant evidence for positive selection was identified on genes ST6GALNAC2 and EPHX1 in Yorkshire, PARK2 in Landrace, and BMP6, SLA-DQA1, and PRKG1 in Duroc. These genes are reportedly relevant to lactation, reproduction, meat quality, and growth traits. To understand how these single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) related positive selection affect protein function, we analyzed the effect of non-synonymous SNPs. Three SNPs (rs324509622, rs80931851, and rs80937718) in the SLA-DQA1 gene were significant in the enrichment tests, indicating strong evidence for positive selection in Duroc. Our analyses identified genes under positive selection for lactation, reproduction, and meat-quality and growth traits in Yorkshire, Landrace, and Duroc, respectively.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.467-471
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• 2009

The entire D-loop region of the porcine mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was amplified from six pig breeds (Landrace, Duroc, Large White, Korean native pig, Berkshire, and Hampshire) using a primer set designed on the basis of reported porcine mtDNA sequences. From analyses through cloning, DNA sequencing and multiple sequence alignment, an 11-bp (TAAAACACTTA) duplication was observed after known tandem repetition in the D-loop region, which promoted hetroplasmy in mtDNA. Although the existence of the 11-bp duplication has been previously reported in Duroc and Japanese native pigs, there have not been any attempts to know the characteristics of this duplication in other breeds so far. A 150 bp fragment containing the 11-duplication was amplified and typed by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE). All Large Whites had two duplication units and Duroc showed heteromorphic patterns, 11.2% (9/80) of the animals had the 11-bp duplication in total. On the other hand, Landrace, Berkshire, Hampshire and Korean native pigs were non-duplicated. This result showed that the 11-bp duplication could be used as a breed-specific DNA marker for distinguishing pure Landrace and Large White breeds.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.813-818
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• 2006

The objective of this study was to investigate effects of supplementation levels of L-leucine in low-lysine diets on growth performance and meat quality parameters in finishing Duroc pigs. A total of fifty-four pigs with an average initial weight of 74±1kg were allotted to one of three dietary treatments. Each treatment had six replications of three pigs per replicate. The treatment diets included 1)a corn-soybean meal basal diet containing lysine as low as 0.45% (CON), 2) basal diet plus 1.5% L-leucine (LEU 1.5), and 3) basal diet plus 3.0% L-leucine (LEU 3.0). No difference was found in ADG, ADFI and Feed/Gain among treatments. In carcass parameters, dressing precent and back-fat thickness were not affected by L-leucine levels, however, longissimus dorsi area tended to increase by supplementation of L-leucine. Marbling score was significantly higher (P<0.05) in LEU 1.5 and LEU 3.0 than in CON. In meat quality parameters, CIE L* of meat color significantly increased (P<0.05) and crude fat tended to increase by supplementation of L-leucine. However, there was no difference in water holding capacity, cooking loss and shear force value. This study suggests that dietary supplementation of L-leucine in low-lysine diets at the end of finishing period can produce high marbled pork which is preferred by Korean consumers.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.287-291
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• 2016

For evaluating the boar semen quality, sperm motility (MOT) is an important parameter because the movement of spermatozoa indicates active metabolism, membrane integrity and fertilizing capacity. Estrogen receptors 2(ESR2) is involved in estrogen related apoptosis in cell cycle spermatogenesis, but their functions have not been confirmed in pig until now. Therefore, this study was conducted to analyze their association with sperm motility and kinematic characteristics. DNA samples from 105 Duroc pigs with records of semen motility and kinematic characteristics [Total motile spermatozoa (MOT), Curvilinear velocity(VCL), Straight-line velocity(VSL), the ratio between VSL and VCL(LIN), Amplitude of Lateral Head displacement(ALH)] were analyzed. A SNP in coding region of ESR2 g.35547A > G in exon 5 was associated with MOT (p < 0.05) in Duroc population. Therefore, we suggest that the porcine ESR2 gene may be used as a molecular marker for Duroc boar semen quality, although its functional effects were not defined yet. These results might shed new light on the roles of ESR2 in spermatogenesis as candidate gene for boar fertility, but still the lack of association across populations should be considered.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.91-97
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• 2015

Amphiregulin (AREG), a glycoprotein that is a member of the epidermal growth factor (EGF) family, is expressed by the porcine conceptus and endometrium. AREG genotypes were determined based on an SNP in the intron 3 of the gene. Contradictory effects of AREG genotypes on reproductive traits in different pig breeds were reported previously. G allele had undesirable effect on reproductive trait in Meishan breed, while it had favorable effects in Polish Landrace and Large White. We determined AREG genotypes of 179 pigs including the Duroc, Landrace, Yorkshire, Korean native pig (KNP), and Meishan breeds. Two new SNPs were identified near the previously reported SNP in the intron 3 of AREG. Frequencies of AREG alleles among the Duroc, Landrace, Yorkshire, and KNP sows were significantly different (p<0.001), indicating association between AREG genotypes and pig breeds. The first parity litter size was significantly affected by the breeds (p=0.014), but not by AREG genotypes (p=0.148). However, there were breed and AREG genotype associated trends in the first parity litter size. The first parity litter size appeared to be higher in Duroc and KNP sows with G allele, while it appeared to be lower in Landrace sows with G allele. Significant variability of AREG alleles among pig breeds, for the first time in Duroc and KNP sows, was identified. AREG genotypes may influence reproductive traits differentially for each breed and thus, AREG genotypes may need to be considered when sows are bred to increase litter size.