• Korean Journal of Animal Reproduction
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.22-25
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• 1987

This study was carried out to investigate the effects of imported pellet frozen semen on sperm motility and NAR acrosomes after thawing, and the farrowing rates, litter sizes and preweaning body weights after artificial insemination. A total of 28 sows of Landrace, Large White and Duroc were inseminated at the Chungnam Provincial Animal Breeding Station. The results obtained are summarized as follows: 1. Landrace andLarge White had higher sperm motility than Duroc by about 20% and had higher NAR acrosomes by about 10%. 2. The farrowing rates of Landrace, Large White and Duroc were 63.6, 55.6 adn 50.0%, respectively. The number of pigs born alive per litter were larger in Landrace and Large White as compared with Duroc (p<.01). 3. Duroc had the highest mean pig weight at birth, followed by Landrace and Large White (p<.01). The mean pig weights at 21 days and 56 days had no significant differences between the breeds.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.1485-1489
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• 2007

Achaete-scute like 2 (ASCL2) gene encodes a member of the basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor which is essential for the maintenance of proliferating trophoblasts during placental development. ASCL2 gene preferentially expresses the maternal allele in the mouse. However, it escapes genomic imprinting in the human. In this study, the complete open reading frame consisting of 193 amino acids of ASCL2 gene was obtained. Sequence analysis indicated that a C-G mutation existed in the 3' region between Meishan and Large White pigs. The polymorphism was used to determine the monoallelic or biallelic expression with RT-PCR-RFLP in pigs of Large $White{\times}Meishan$ $F_1$ hybrids. Imprinting analysis indicated that the ASCL2 gene expression was biallelic in all the tested tissues (heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, stomach, small intestine, skeletal muscle, fat, uterus, ovary and pituitary). PCR-RFLP was used to detect the polymorphism in 270 pigs of the "$Large\;White{\times}Meishan$" $F_2$ resource population. The statistical results showed highly significant associations of the genotypes and fat meat percentage (FMP), lean meat percentage (LMP) and ratio of lean to fat (RLF) (p<0.01), and significant associations of the genotypes and loin eye area (LEA) and internal fat rate (IFR) (p<0.05).

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.682-685
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• 2005

Large White, an introduced European pig breed, and Meishan, a Chinese indigenous pig breed, were hybridized directly and reciprocally and a total of 260 pigs, including purebreds, Large White and Meishan, and their hybrids, White${\times}$Meishan (LM) and Meishan${\times}$Large White (ML) pigs, were bred in our laboratory. The mRNA differential display PCR (DD-PCR) was used to detect the age-dependent changes of differential gene expression in backfat tissue between hybrids and parents. Some measures were taken to reduce the false positives in our experiment. Among the total of 2,686 bands obtained, 1,952 bands (about 72.67%) were reproducible and eight patterns (fifteen kinds) of gene expression were observed. The percentage of differentially expressed genes between hybrids and parents is 56.86% at the age of four months and 57.71% at the age of six months. This indicated that the differences of gene expression between hybrids and their parents were very obvious. U-test was used to compare the patterns of gene expression between the age of four and six months, and results showed that bands occurring in only one hybrid and bands displayed in one hybrid and one parent were significantly different at p<0.05, and bands visualized in only two hybrids were significantly different at p<0.01. These indicated that differential gene expression between hybrids and parents changed at different ages.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.1751-1755
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• 2017

Objective: An experiment was conducted to study the blood haematology, muscle pH, and serum cortisol changes in pigs with different levels of drip loss. Methods: Two groups (low and high) of 20 animals were selected from 100 pigs based on drip loss. All [$Duroc{\times}(Large\;White{\times}Landrace)$] pigs were slaughtered according to standard slaughtering procedures. At exsanguinations, blood samples were taken for the haematological parameters and serum cortisol analysis. The muscle samples were taken from longissimus dorsi muscle to evaluate the muscle pH and drip loss. Results: Haematological parameters of low drip loss group showed higher content of white blood cells and monocytes than high drip loss group (p<0.05). The low drip loss group had higher muscle pH at 45 min (p<0.05) and 24 h (p<0.001) post-mortem than the high drip loss group. However, there was no significant difference in serum cortisol levels (p>0.05). Conclusion: Drip loss is mainly affected by the muscle pH decline after slaughter and also might be affected by white blood cells and monocytes.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.1192-1196
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• 2004

In order to detect the molecular mechanism of heterosis in pigs, the mRNA differential display technique was performed to investigate the differences in gene expression of pig's Longissimus dorsi between the high-parent heterosis cross combination Landrace${\times}$Large White and the mid-parent heterosis cross combination Large White${\times}$Meishan. Three pig purebreds, Large White, Meishan, and Landrace and four types of reciprocal $F_1$ hybrids were analyzed using nine 3'-end anchored primers in combination with ten 5'-end arbitrary primers and nearly 7,000 reproducible bands were examined. The patterns of gene expression of each cross combination were analyzed and eight common patterns (fifteen kinds) were found. When the results from the two cross combinations were put together and compared, eight different typical expression patterns were observed, these indicated that the patterns of gene expression of these two cross combinations had obvious differences. Gene expression correlation and cluster analyses of the two cross combinations indicated that the gene expression of the mid-parent heterosis cross combination was correlated with maternal effect, but in the high-parent heterosis cross combination, paternal effect acted in the gene expression of the hybrids or the gene expression of the hybrids was biased towards one parent.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.313-318
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• 2009

TIAF1 is a TGF-${\beta}$1-induced anti-apoptotic factor that plays a critical role in blocking TNF (tumor necrosis factor) cytotoxicity in mouse fibroblasts and participates in TGF-${\beta}$-mediated growth regulation. In this study, we obtained the full-length cDNA sequence of the porcine TIAF1 gene. Real-time PCR further revealed that the TIAF1 gene was expressed at the highest level in liver and kidney with prominent expressions detected in uterus, and lower levels detected in heart, spleen, lung, stomach, small intestine, skeletal muscle and fat of Large White pigs. Sequence analysis indicated that a 6 base-pair deletion mutation existed in the exon of the TIAF1 gene between Meishan and Large White pigs. This mutation induced deletion of Gln and Val amino acids. PCR-RFLP was used to detect the polymorphism in 394 pigs of a "Large White${\times}$Meishan" $F_{2}$ resource population and four purebred pig populations. The frequencies of the A allele (with a 6 bp deletion) were dominant in Chinese Meishan and Bamei pigs, and the frequencies of the B allele (no 6 bp deletion) were dominant in Large White and Landrace pigs. Association analyses revealed that the deletion mutation had highly significant associations (p<0.01) with meat marbling score of the thorax-waist longissimus dorsi (LD) muscle (MM1) and intramuscular fat percentage (IMF), and significant associations (p<0.05) with carcass length (CL). The results presented here supply evidence that the 6 bp deletion mutation in the TIAF1 gene affects porcine meat quality and provides useful information for further porcine breeding.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.315-320
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• 2016

Porcine beta-defensin-1 (PBD-1) gene plays an important role in the innate immunity of pigs. The peptide encoded by this gene is an antimicrobial peptide that has direct activity against a wide range of microbes. This peptide is involved in the co-creation of an antimicrobial barrier in the oral cavity of pigs. The objective of the present study was to detect polymorphisms, if any, in exon-1 and exon-2 regions of PBD-1 gene in Large White Yorkshire (LWY) and native Ankamali pigs of Kerala, India. Blood samples were collected from 100 pigs and genomic DNA was isolated using phenol chloroform method. The quantity of DNA was assessed in a spectrophotometer and quality by gel electrophoresis. Exon-1 and exon-2 regions of PBD-1 gene were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and the products were subjected to single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis. Subsequent silver staining of the polyacrylamide gels revealed three unique SSCP banding patterns in each of the two exons. The presence of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) was confirmed by nucleotide sequencing of the PCR products. A novel SNP was found in the 5'-UTR region of exon-1 and a SNP was detected in the mature peptide coding region of exon-2. In exon-1, the pooled population frequencies of GG, GT, and TT genotypes were 0.67, 0.30, and 0.03, respectively. GG genotype was predominant in both the breeds whereas TT genotype was not detected in LWY breed. Similarly, in exon-2, the pooled population frequencies of AA, AG, and GG genotypes were 0.50, 0.27, and 0.23, respectively. AA genotype was predominant in LWY pigs whereas GG genotype was predominant in native pigs. These results suggest that there exists a considerable genetic variation at PBD-1 locus and further association studies may help in development of a PCR based genotyping test to select pigs with better immunity.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.15 no.10
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• pp.1391-1394
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• 2002

The polymorphism of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) in 13 pig breeds (total n=559) was detected by PCR-Hha I- RFLP, and allele A (151 bp and 28 bp) or allele B (116 bp, 35 bp and 28 bp) were observed. In these pig breeds, it was found that European pig breeds carried high frequencies of allele B, while Chinese native pig breeds carried high frequencies of allele A. Meanwhile the role of porcine IGF-I was investigated in 117 Nanchang White pigs and 360 Large Yorkshire pigs. Eight traits about growth and carcass were recorded for analyzing the associations between IGF-I gene polymorphism and performance quantitative traits. In the Nanchang White pigs, those with AA genotype generally had higher birth weight than those with AB genotype (p<0.05), but all these genotypes had no significant effect on the other traits which had been analyzed. In Large Yorkshire pigs, those with BB genotype had higher 2 months and 6 months body weight than those with AA genotype (p<0.05), and had a thicker hind-back-fat thickness and mid-back-thickness than those with AB and BB genotypes (p<0.05). And those with BB genotype were the thinnest in Large Yorkshire. Furthermore, pigs with AA genotype had a lower lean percentage than those with AB and BB genotypes (p<0.01), and the lean percentage of those with BB genotype was the highest. Based on these results, it is possible to make the IGF-I gene locus into the application of marker-assisted selection programmes.

• 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.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.1257-1261
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• 2006

Pleiomorphic adenoma gene-like1 (PLAGL1) encodes a zinc-finger (ZF) protein with seven ZFs of the C2H2-type which is a regulator of apoptosis and cell cycle arrest, and also regulates the secretion of insulin. In both human and mouse, PLAGL1 is a candidate gene for tumor suppressor and transient neonatal diabetes mellitus (TNDM). In this study, a 2,238 bp fragment covering the complete coding region was obtained and deposited to GenBank (accession number: DQ288899). The reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) indicated that PLAGL1 was expressed almost equally in heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, stomach, small intestine, skeletal muscle, fat, uterus and ovary. Comparing the sequences of Large White and Meishan pigs, a C-T transition in exon 6 was found. The polymorphism could be detected by TaqI and was genotyped in five purebreds (Large White, Landrace, Meishan, Tongcheng and Bamei). Association analysis was performed between the polymorphism and carcass traits in 276 pigs of a "Large White${\times}$Meishan" F2 resource population. As a consequence, significant associations of the genotypes with shoulder backfat thickness (SFT) and internal fat rate (IFR) were observed. Pigs with TT genotype had low SFT and high IFR compared with TC or CC genotypes.