Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2020, Vol. 51 ›› Issue (5): 1007-1018.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2020.05.012

• ANIMAL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND REPRODUCTION • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Cloning, Expression of VRTN Gene and Association Analysis of Its Polymorphism with Reproductive Traits in Bama Xiang Pigs

MO Jiayuan, GAO Jiuyu, SUN Le, HUANG Ye, FENG Lingli, QU Qiuhong, LIANG Jing*, LAN Ganqiu*   

  1. College of Animal Science & Technology, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China
  • Received:2019-10-29 Online:2020-05-25 Published:2020-05-16

Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the sequence characteristics, tissue expressions of VRTN (vertebrae development homolog) gene in Bama Xiang pig population and the gene frequency of causal mutation site ins291 for vertebral number and its association with teat number and litter size. The tissues of three 0-day-old Bama Xiang pigs were collected, and the full-length sequence of VRTN gene coding region was obtained by cDNA cloning technology and bioinformatics analysis was also conducted. The expression of VRTN in heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, longissimus dorsi and subcutaneous fat tissue was detected by fluorescence quantitative PCR. Blood samples from 279 Bama Xiang sows were collected to test the frequency distribution of ins291 site in the population, and its association with teat number and litter size was analyzed. The result showed that the full-length of the VRTN gene coding region in Bama Xiang pig was 2 097 bp, its amino acid sequence had lots of conserved regions among different species; VRTN gene encoded 698 amino acids, and it was predicted to express a hydrophilic protein. VRTN protein was most likely having one helix-turn-helix superfamily structural functional region, two low-complexity regions and two internal repetition structures. Moreover, the protein interacted with nuclear receptor subfamily 6 group A member 1 (NR6A1), Prospero homeobox 2 (PROX2) and leucine rich repeat containing 74A (LRRC74A). VRTN gene was expressed in all tissues of 0-day-old Bama Xiang pigs, with the highest expression in longissimus dorsi. The allele frequency of beneficial mutation site ins291 of VRTN in Bama Xiang pigs from the preserved population was 21.15%. There was no significant difference in average litter size, total teat number, left teat number, right teat number and maximum teat number of one side among individuals with different genotypes (P>0.05), but the teat number of individuals with homozygous mutant genotype(ins/ins) was higher than those with other genotypes. These results indicate that molecular breeding method can be used to increase the favorable allele frequency of VRTN ins291 in the industrialized productions of Bama Xiang pigs, which don't affect litter size.

Key words: Bama Xiang pig, VRTN gene, association analysis, teat number, litter size

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