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ABSTRACT: Thioredoxin interacting protein (TXNIP), which plays a regulatory role in lipid metabolism and immune regulation, is down-regulated expressed in F(1) hybrids Landrace × Yorkshire skeletal muscle. Here we described the molecular characterization of porcine TXNIP gene. The full-length cDNA contains a coding sequence of 1,176 bp nucleotides with untranslated regions of 263 bp at 5'-end and 441 bp at 3'-end, respectively. The predicted molecular mass and isoelectric point of porcine TXNIP is 43.81 kDa and 7.385, respectively. The deduced 391 amino acids exhibit high identity with other mammalian TXNIP. The TXNIP gene contains eight coding exons and seven non coding introns, spans approximately 3,348 bp. The expression of porcine TXNIP mRNA is almost absent in Landrace × Yorkshire and lower level in 6-month-old pigs during skeletal muscle development. Other stages and breeds were high level expressed. Statistical analysis showed the TXNIP gene polymorphism (c.575-4T>C) was different between F(1) hybrids and their parents, was highly associated with dressing percentage (DP) and thorax-waist fat thickness (TFT) in the Yorkshire × Meishan F(2) population. The possible role of TXNIP was discussed.
Molecular Biology Reports 10/2012; · 2.93 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The microsomal enzyme 1, 2-acyl CoA: diacylglyceroltransferase-1 (DGAT1) plays an important role in triglyceride storage in adipose tissue and expresses in skeletal muscle as well. The primary goal of the present study was to investigate the effect of porcine DGAT1 on intramuscular fat (IMF) content of transgenic mice produced by pronuclear microinjection with muscle specific promoter of porcine muscle creatine kinase (MCK). In normal chow-fed diet, 4 month-old male transgenic mice expressed more DGAT1, ACC1, UCP1, and FABP4 mRNAs and proteins in skeletal muscle than control mice by real-time PCR and western blot. No significant changes were detected for ACC2, CD36, ADRP, PPAR gamma and LPL. Triacylglycerol assay and soleus muscle sections showed overexpression of porcine DGAT1 in skeletal muscle increased intramyocellular triglyceride and percent of the total cell surface covered by lipid droplets. Thus, upregulation of porcine DGAT1 in skeletal muscle increases IMF content. The present study may further serve to develop transgenic pigs with higher IMF content and improved meat quality.
Transgenic Research 07/2012; · 2.75 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Six1 protein belongs to the Six homeoproteins family, exposing typical domain structure. Although the functions of Six1 have been drawn much attention, the roles of its individual domains are not completely elucidated. Here, we first detected the expression patterns of myogenin, MyoD, Myf5, and Six1 genes using real-time PCR in differentiating C2C12 cells cultured in differentiation medium for 2 or 6 days. The results showed that Six1 gene had the similar expression pattern with myogenin, MyoD, and Myf5 genes, which suggests that it may affect the myogenic differentiation. In order to evaluate the role of distinct domains of Six1 protein in subcellular localization, we constructed a series of truncated vectors tagged with green fluorescent proteins expressing various regions of porcine Six1 protein for subcellular localization analysis. Fluorescence confocal microscopy analysis showed that the different regions of Six1 protein displayed discrete distributions throughout the nucleus and the cytoplasm. The full-length CDS was exclusively localized in the nucleus and the individual HD domain was preferentially distributed to the nucleus both in C2C12 cells and in PK cells. However, the SD domain was diffusely distributed to the cytoplasm and the nucleus, and the localization of SD domain was biased to cytoplasm in C2C12 cells. Taken together, we conclude that the HD domain is important for the nuclear localization of porcine Six1 protein.
Molecular Biology Reports 06/2012; · 2.93 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ2 (PPARγ2) is a key regulator of adipocyte differentiation, fatty acid uptake and storage in mammals. The primary goal of the present study was to investigate the consequences of PPARγ2 overexpression in the muscle. A swine muscle creatine kinase promoter was used to drive swine PPARγ2 (sPPARγ2) overexpression in the muscle of a transgenic mice model. The results showed that the mRNA of multiple adipocyte genes was increased in the skeletal muscle, as evidenced by the up-regulation of fatty acid synthase (2.11-fold, P < 0.05), lipoprotein lipase (2.08-fold, P < 0.01), fatty acid-binding protein 4 (14.30-fold, P < 0.01), and CD36 antigen (5.50-fold, P < 0.01). Meanwhile, skeletal muscle triacylglycerol was increased (P < 0.01) and the fatty acid profile of muscle fat was changed in that more polyunsaturated fats acid were augmented. The present study may further serve to develop transgenic pigs with higher intramuscular fat content and improved pork quality.
Transgenic Research 04/2012; · 2.75 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: To gain further insight into the molecular mechanism of porcine skeletal muscle development, we combined MS characterization of proteins with high-throughput screening of differential mRNAs obtained from purebred Meishan longissimus dorsi muscle (LM) at four stages of 65 days post conception, 3, 60 and 120 days after birth. Strikingly, the dramatic differences were observed in embryo and newborn pigs, whereas 60 and 120 days pigs exhibited similar patterns in protein and mRNA expression. At the protein level, 66 differentially expressed proteins were identified. The development-dependent alterations in protein abundance indicated dramatic changes in metabolism, myofibrillar filaments, cytoskeleton, contractile activity and stress response, and signal transduction. At the transcript level, gene expression was measured with the Affymetrix Porcine Genechip, and 338 genes, representing approximately 1.7% of the chromosome, differed by two fold or more between the neighboring growth phases. Analysis of one such comparison, the expression patterns of most differential proteins showed a positive correlation with their gene expression at the transcript level during skeletal muscle development. Overall, many proteins or genes were previously unrecognized as differentially expressed during growth stages, and they represented novel starting points for understanding the developmental characteristics of biochemical and physiological properties in porcine skeletal muscle.
Journal of proteomics 01/2012; 75(7):2093-108. · 5.07 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3α and GSK3β) are serine/threonine kinases involved in numerous cellular processes and diverse diseases including mood disorders, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and cancer. However, in pigs, the information on GSK3 is very limited. Identification and characterization of pig GSK3 are not only important for pig genetic improvement, but also contribute to the understanding and development of porcine models for human disease prevention and treatment.
Five different isoforms of GSK3β were identified in porcine different tissues, in which three isoforms are novel. These isoforms had differential expression patterns in the fetal and adult of the porcine different tissues. The mRNA expression level of GSK3β isoforms was differentially regulated during the course of the insulin treatment, suggesting that different GSK3β isoforms may have different roles in insulin signaling pathway. Moreover, GSK3β5 had a different role on regulating the glycogen synthase activity, phosphorylation and the expression of porcine GYS1 and GYS2 gene compared to other GSK3β isoforms.
We are the first to report five different isoforms of GSK3β identified from the porcine different tissues. Splice variants of GSK3β exhibit differential activity towards glycogen synthase. These results provide new insight into roles of the GSK3β on regulating glycogen metabolism.
PLoS ONE 01/2012; 7(7):e40250. · 4.09 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Glycogen synthase (GS) catalyzes the key step of glycogen synthesis and plays an important role in glycogen metabolism in liver and muscle. In this study, we cloned the cDNA and promoter sequences of porcine glycogen synthesis genes (GYS1 and GYS2). Expression analysis revealed that porcine GYS1 was highly expressed in the skeletal muscle and heart. GYS2 was expressed specifically in liver and subcutaneous adipose tissue. The expression level of GYS1 was up-regulated from proliferation to differentiation in the porcine satellite cells, and insulin did not significantly affect the transcription of GYS1. Insulin stimulated 72-h-differentiated satellite cells as indicated by decrease in phosphorylation of GS, but did not affect GYS1 transcription and total GS protein level, suggesting that the effect of insulin is primarily mediated via posttranscriptional control rather than regulated at the transcriptional level. Four single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were detected in the promoter and cDNA sequences of porcine GYS1. Association analyses revealed that the GYS1 Hin6I and MvaI polymorphisms both had significant associations (P < 0.05) with pH of M. longissimus dorsi (pHLD), M. biceps femoris (pHBF) and M. semipinalis capitis (pHSC) at 45 min postmortem. These results provide useful information for further investigation on the function of glycogen synthase in porcine skeletal muscle.
Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry 09/2011; 360(1-2):169-80. · 2.06 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: SRPK3 is a protein kinase belonging to serine/arginine protein kinases (SRPK) family, which phosphorylates serine/arginine repeat-containing proteins, and is controlled by a muscle-specific enhancer directly regulated by MEF2. In this study, a full-length cDNA of the porcine SRPK3 gene encoding a 566 amino acid protein was isolated. It contains 14 exons over approximately 4.3 kb. The deduced amino acid sequence of porcine SRPK3 contains a bipartite kinase domain, and shows high similarities to their corresponding human and cattle homologues. Tissue distribution analysis indicated that porcine SRPK3 mRNAs are highly expressed in heart and skeletal muscle especially in uterus and parorchis, but at low level in brain, stomach, small intestine, and ovary. Expression pattern of SRPK3 was similar in Large White and Chinese Meishan breeds. Both the two breeds had the highest expression levels at fetal 65 days (P < 0.01), and decreased while the age increased until 60 days old, then increased at 120 days (P < 0.01) and decreased at 180 days (P < 0.05). However, at fetal 65 days, the mRNA abundance of SRPK3 in Large White was 12.5-fold higher than in Meishan pigs (P < 0.01), whereas at 180 days, the abundance in Meishan was 3.4-fold higher than in Large White pigs (P < 0.01). These results suggest that the SRPK3 gene might be an important gene of skeletal muscle development and also provides basic molecular information useful for further studies on its roles in porcine skeletal muscle.
Molecular Biology Reports 06/2011; 38(5):2903-9. · 2.93 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Obese and lean pig breeds show obvious differences in adipose metabolism/fat deposition; however, the molecular mechanism underlying phenotype variation remains unknown. In order to understand it, we analyzed the differences of gene expression in backfat between Meishan (a typical Chinese indigenous obese breed) and Large White (a lean Western breed) pigs. Here, we cloned porcine β subunit of IDH3 (IDH3B) and 2447 bp 5'-flanking sequence of this gene, and determined the genomic structure. Porcine IDH3B contains three isoforms, IDH3B ( 1 ), IDH3B ( 2 ) and IDH3B ( 3 ). Real-time RT-PCR revealed that these three isoforms were prevalently up-regulated in backfat of western commercial pigs, Large White, Landrace and Duroc, compared with Chinese indigenous breeds, Meishan and Tongcheng pigs. A 304 bp insertion/deletion variant was found in the 5'-flanking region. Dual-luciferase reporter assays showed that in vitro the promoter of IDH3B gene with the insertion had higher luciferase activity as compared with the wild type. Three genotypes AA, AB and BB, due to this insertion, were detected, and the frequency of allele A was dominant in western commercial pigs, whereas allele B predominated in Chinese indigenous breeds. IDH3B mRNA expression in Meishan pigs was more abundant with genotype AA than with genotype AB or BB, as in Large White pigs. In addition, the polymorphism was detected in 317 pigs of a Large White × Meishan F2 resource population. Association analysis showed that pigs with genotype AA possessed higher backfat thickness at buttocks than those with genotype AB (P < 0.05) or BB. These data suggested that the 304 bp insertion mutation in promoter region increased the expression of porcine IDH3β transcripts and this mutation might be a candidate marker for marker assistant selection in swine breeding.
Molecular Biology Reports 05/2011; 39(2):1419-26. · 2.93 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The association of the porcine Pitx2c gene with meat quality traits was investigated in the present study. A total of eight single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were found. Allele frequencies of four SNPs were further detected in four commercial breeds and eight Chinese indigenous breeds. Single SNP and meat quality associations were analyzed in a Yorkshire×Meishan F(2) population. The SNPs c.474C>T (P<0.01) and c.636C>T (P<0.05) showed a significant association with meat color (MCV1). The SNPs c.*37G>A and c.*47G>A were significantly associated with drip loss rate (DLR), water holding capacity (WHC) and meat color value (MCV1) consistently (P<0.05). Linkage disequilibrium (LD) analysis revealed that the adjacent SNPs were in LD. Two major haplotypes were identified, and association analysis between haplotype combinations and meat quality indicated that the presence of two copies of haplotype 1 -CCGG- may improve meat quality.
Science China. Life sciences 05/2011; 54(5):426-33. · 2.02 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Six1 belongs to the Six gene family that includes six members in mammals (from Six1 to Six6). It has been demonstrated that Six1 homeodomain transcription factor is implicated in myogenesis. However, the molecular characteristics of Six1 in pigs have not been reported. In this study, we isolated and characterized the porcine Six1 gene full-length cDNA, genomic DNA and proximal promoter sequence. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR results confirmed that porcine Six1 was highly expressed in skeletal muscle. Real-time quantitative PCR results showed that porcine Six1 was highly expressed in embryonic stage and no significant expression differences is observed between Meishan and Yorkshire pigs. Furthermore, Six1 expression was significantly different among different developmental stages in Yorkshire pigs and the expression trend was up-regulated from 3 days to 180 days, reaching its highest expression level at 180 days. In addition, the data of Six1 expression in different muscles demonstrated that Six1 was a fast-twitch muscle high expression gene. PCR-HindII-RFLP was established to detect a C/T mutation and an A/G mutation which were present in promoter and intron, respectively. Meanwhile, their associations with economic traits were assessed in Meishan × Yorkshire F2 reference family. The statistical results revealed that the two HindII polymorphisms of porcine Six1 had significant associations with several meat quality traits (P<0.05). Taken together, these studies suggest that porcine Six1 may play an important role in skeletal muscle growth and meat quality.
Molecular Biology Reports 11/2010; 38(4):2619-32. · 2.93 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Quantitative PCR (qPCR) is a method for rapid and reliable quantification of mRNA. Internal controls such as reference genes are used to normalize mRNA levels between different samples for an exact comparison of gene transcription level. However, the expression levels of these reference genes may vary between cell types, developmental stages, species and experimental conditions, thus proper normalization strategy is an important precondition for reliable conclusions. In this study, we explored 10 commonly used reference genes in porcine skeletal muscle using SYBR green qPCR. We used both geNorm and NormFinder to analyze the expression stability and found that PPIA, HPRT and eEF-1γ were suitable internal controls for porcine skeletal muscle. However, PPIA, HPRT and SDHA were suitable for skeletal muscle of western pigs while PPIA, eEF-1γ and HPRT for indigenous Chinese pigs. Normalized qPCR data of ROCK2 were compared with microarray data to evaluate our developed set of reference genes.
Journal of biotechnology 09/2010; 150(3):288-93. · 2.88 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The actinin-associated LIM protein (ALP) is co-localized with alpha-actinin at the Z-discs and plays a critical role in the integration of cytoskeletal architecture and transcriptional regulation. Here we report that five isoforms of the porcine ALP were generated in skeletal muscle by alternative splicing. All of ALP isoforms were predominantly expressed in skeletal muscle except for ALP2. These isoforms had different expression profiles during the prenatal and postnatal period of the porcine skeletal muscle development and between the two breeds. Moreover, ALP1 and ALP3 were expressed at higher levels in soleus and masseter muscles compared with longissimus dorsi and bicepsfemoris muscles in Yorkshire pigs. Expression analysis in porcine satellite cells showed that all isoforms were induced in differentiated porcine satellite cells, suggesting a role of them in myogenic differentiation. These results provide new insight into roles of regulation at level of splicing of the ALP in governing porcine skeletal muscle development.
Meat Science 04/2010; 84(4):655-61. · 2.28 Impact Factor
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Lifan Luo,
Lianzhi Ye,
Gang Liu,
Guochao Shao,
Rong Zheng,
Zhuqing Ren,
Bo Zuo, Dequan Xu,
Minggang Lei,
Siwen Jiang,
Changyan Deng,
Yuanzhu Xiong,
Fenge Li
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ABSTRACT: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short non-coding RNA molecules which are proved to be involved in mammalian spermatogenesis. Their expression and function in the porcine germ cells are not fully understood.
We employed a miRNA microarray containing 1260 unique miRNA probes to evaluate the miRNA expression patterns between sexually immature (60-day) and mature (180-day) pig testes. One hundred and twenty nine miRNAs representing 164 reporter miRNAs were expressed differently (p<0.1). Fifty one miRNAs were significantly up-regulated and 78 miRNAs were down-regulated in mature testes. Nine of these differentially expressed miRNAs were validated using quantitative RT-PCR assay. Totally 15,919 putative miRNA-target sites were detected by using RNA22 method to align 445 NCBI pig cDNA sequences with these 129 differentially expressed miRNAs, and seven putative target genes involved in spermatogenesis including DAZL, RNF4 gene were simply confirmed by quantitative RT-PCR.
Overall, the results of this study indicated specific miRNAs expression in porcine testes and suggested that miRNAs had a role in regulating spermatogenesis.
PLoS ONE 01/2010; 5(8):e11744. · 4.09 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: An effective cell lysis method for extraction of bacterial genomic DNA from compost was developed in this study. Enzymatic disruption method, physical-chemical combination method, and commercial kit method were used to extract DNA from compost samples and were compared by analyzing DNA yield and efficient cell lysis. The results showed that all the three methods can be used to extract high-quality DNA from compost, but the enzymatic method had better cell lysis efficiency and DNA yields than others without the use of special equipment and expensive spending. Comparison of different methods for lysing gram-positive bacteria Bacillus subtilis indicated that the enzymatic cell lysis is superior for destroying the gram-positive cell wall. Spin-bind DNA column was used for DNA purification, and the purity of the purified sample was checked by polymerase chain reaction to amplify a region of the 16S rRNA. Results indicated that the part of 16S rRNA were amplified from all the purified DNA samples, and all the amplification products could be digested by the restriction enzyme HhaI.
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology 09/2009; 84(2):389-95. · 3.42 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Apolipoprotein M (APOM), a novel apolipoprotein presented mostly in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) in plasma, is involved in lipid and lipoprotein metabolism. Through comparative mapping, we have mapped this gene to SSC7 p1.1 in which many QTLs affecting fat deposition traits have been reported. As a candidate gene for fat deposition traits, in this study, we obtained the 742-bp mRNA sequence of porcine APOM including the full coding region and encoding a protein of 188 amino acids. The sequence was deposited into the GenBank under the accession no. DQ329240. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR results showed that the porcine APOM gene is expressed predominantly in liver and kidney tissue. The genomic sequence of this gene which contains six exons and five introns, is 3,621 bp in length (DQ272488). Bioinformatic analysis of the 5' regulatory region has revealed that classical TATA-box element and species conserved Hepatocyte nuclear factor-1a (HNF-1alpha) biding site were represented in this region. A G2289C single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the intron 2 of porcine APOM gene detected as an Eco130I PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) showed allele frequency differences among three purebreds. Association of the genotypes with fat deposition traits showed that different genotypes of porcine APOM gene were significantly associated with leaf fat weight (P < 0.05), backfat thickness at shoulder (P < 0.05), backfat thickness at thorax-waist (P < 0.05), backfat thickness at buttock (P < 0.01) and average backfat thickness over shoulder, thorax-waist and buttock (P < 0.01).
Molecular Biology Reports 04/2009; 37(3):1363-71. · 2.93 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The glutathione S-transferase mu 2 gene (GSTM2) encodes a GST functioning in the elimination of electrophilic compounds and the regulation of cell growth. In this study, the sequence of porcine GSTM2 gene that contains the complete sequence encoding a protein of 218 amino acids was cloned. The deduced amino acid sequence shared 76%, 78% and 76% identity with that of human, mouse and rat, respectively. mRNA expression analysis showed that the porcine GSTM2 gene was expressed at a high level in liver and testis, at a medium level in longissimus dorsi muscle, adipose tissue, spleen and lung, at a low level in kidney, and at a very low level in heart and embryo. A nonsense mutation (CGA-->TGA) resulted from C27T substitution in the fifth exon to produce a premature translation termination codon was identified, and it was discovered that nonsense-mediated mRNA decay might have an effect on the regulation of porcine GSTM2 gene expression. This polymorphism was analyzed in Large White, Landrace, Meishan and Qingping pig populations using the Taq I-polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method. The result showed that allele C had a higher frequency than allele T in each population.
Acta Biochimica et Biophysica Sinica 08/2007; 39(8):560-6. · 1.38 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Quantitative trait loci (QTL) were detected for 8 internal organ traits, 3 carcass length traits, and teat number trait in 214 pigs in a resource population that included 180 F(2) individuals. A total of 39 microsatellite markers were examined on SSC4, SSC6, SSC7, SSC8, and SSC13. The genetic traits included heart weight (HW), lung weight (LW), liver and gallbladder weight (LGW), spleen weight (SPW), stomach weight (STW), small intestine weight (SIW), large intestine weight (LIW), kidney weight (KW), carcass length to the first cervical vertebra (CL1), carcass length to the first thoracic vertebra (CL2), rib numbers (RNS), and teat numbers (TNS). Results indicated that, 3 highly significant QTL (P <or= 0.01 at chromosome-wise level) for HW (at 30 cM on SSC6), RNS (at 115 cM on SSC7), TNS (at 110 cM on SSC7), and 6 significant QTL (P <or= 0.05 at chromosome-wise level) for LW (at 119 cM on SSC13), LGW (at 94 cM on SSC6), SPW (at 106 cM on SSC8), SIW (0 cM on SSC4), LIW (170 cM on SSC 4), and TNS (at 95 cM on SSC6) were detected. The phenotypic variances for which these QTL were accounted ranged from 0.04 % to 14.06 %. Most of these QTL had not been previously reported.
Journal of Genetics and Genomics 04/2007; 34(4):307-14. · 1.88 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The actinin-associated LIM protein (ALP) is co-localized with α-actinin at the Z-discs and plays a critical role in the integration of cytoskeletal architecture and transcriptional regulation. Here we report that five isoforms of the porcine ALP were generated in skeletal muscle by alternative splicing. All of ALP isoforms were predominantly expressed in skeletal muscle except for ALP2. These isoforms had different expression profiles during the prenatal and postnatal period of the porcine skeletal muscle development and between the two breeds. Moreover, ALP1 and ALP3 were expressed at higher levels in soleus and masseter muscles compared with longissimus dorsi and bicepsfemoris muscles in Yorkshire pigs. Expression analysis in porcine satellite cells showed that all isoforms were induced in differentiated porcine satellite cells, suggesting a role of them in myogenic differentiation. These results provide new insight into roles of regulation at level of splicing of the ALP in governing porcine skeletal muscle development.
Meat Science.