Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Grønnegårdsvej 7, Frederiksberg C, 1870, Denmark.
Section of Systems Genomics, Department of Bio and Health Informatics, Technical University of Denmark, Kemitorvet, Building 208, 2800, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark.
Sci Rep. 2017 Sep 22;7(1):12205. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-11928-0.
Boar taint (BT) is an offensive odour or taste observed in pork from a proportion of non-castrated male pigs. Surgical castration is effective in avoiding BT, but animal welfare issues have created an incentive for alternatives such as genomic selection. In order to find candidate biomarkers, gene expression profiles were analysed from tissues of non-castrated pigs grouped by their genetic merit of BT. Differential expression analysis revealed substantial changes with log-transformed fold changes of liver and testis from -3.39 to 2.96 and -7.51 to 3.53, respectively. Co-expression network analysis revealed one module with a correlation of -0.27 in liver and three modules with correlations of 0.31, -0.44 and -0.49 in testis. Differential expression and co-expression analysis revealed candidate biomarkers with varying biological functions: phase I (COQ3, COX6C, CYP2J2, CYP2B6, ACOX2) and phase II metabolism (GSTO1, GSR, FMO3) of skatole and androstenone in liver to steroidgenesis (HSD17B7, HSD17B8, CYP27A1), regulation of steroidgenesis (STARD10, CYB5R3) and GnRH signalling (MAPK3, MAP2K2, MAP3K2) in testis. Overrepresented pathways included "Ribosome", "Protein export" and "Oxidative phosphorylation" in liver and "Steroid hormone biosynthesis" and "Gap junction" in testis. Future work should evaluate the biomarkers in large populations to ensure their usefulness in genomic selection programs.
公猪异味（BT）是未去势公猪猪肉中存在的一种难闻或难吃的气味或味道。外科去势可有效避免 BT，但动物福利问题促使人们寻找替代方法，如基因组选择。为了寻找候选生物标志物，我们对根据 BT 遗传优势分组的未去势猪的组织进行了基因表达谱分析。差异表达分析显示，肝脏和睾丸的对数转换倍数分别有显著变化，从-3.39 变为 2.96 和从-7.51 变为 3.53。共表达网络分析显示，在肝脏中有一个模块的相关性为-0.27，在睾丸中有三个模块的相关性分别为 0.31、-0.44 和-0.49。差异表达和共表达分析揭示了具有不同生物学功能的候选生物标志物：肝脏中粪臭素和雄烯酮的 I 相（COQ3、COX6C、CYP2J2、CYP2B6、ACOX2）和 II 相代谢（GSTO1、GSR、FMO3）以及类固醇生成（HSD17B7、HSD17B8、CYP27A1）、类固醇生成调节（STARD10、CYB5R3）和 GnRH 信号（MAPK3、MAP2K2、MAP3K2）；睾丸中涉及核糖体、蛋白质输出和氧化磷酸化的途径较多，而类固醇激素生物合成和间隙连接途径则较多。未来的工作应在大群体中评估这些生物标志物，以确保其在基因组选择计划中的有用性。
