Characterization of porcine ENO3: genomic and cDNA structure, polymorphism and expression

In this study, a full-length cDNA of the porcine ENO3 gene encoding a 434 amino acid protein was isolated. It contains 12 exons over approximately 5.4 kb. Differential splicing in the 5'-untranslated sequence generates two forms of mRNA that differ from each other in the presence or absence of a 142-nucleotide fragment. Expression analysis showed that transcript 1 of ENO3 is highly expressed in liver and lung, while transcript 2 is highly expressed in skeletal muscle and heart. We provide the first evidence that in skeletal muscle expression of ENO3 is different between Yorkshire and Meishan pig breeds. Furthermore, real-time polymerase chain reaction revealed that, in Yorkshire pigs, skeletal muscle expression of transcript 1 is identical at postnatal day-1 and at other stages while that of transcript 2 is higher. Moreover, expression of transcript 1 is lower in skeletal muscle and all other tissue samples than that of transcript 2, with the exception of liver and kidney. Statistical analysis showed the existence of a polymorphism in the ENO3 gene between Chinese indigenous and introduced commercial western pig breeds and that it is associated with fat percentage, average backfat thickness, meat marbling and intramuscular fat in two different populations.