The liver transcriptome of two full-sibling Songliao black pigs with extreme differences in backfat thickness

BACKGROUND: Fatness traits in animals are important for their growth, meat quality, reproductive performance, and immunity. The liver is the principal organ of the regulation of lipid metabolism, and this study used massive parallelized high-throughput sequencing technologies to determine the porcine liver tissue transcriptome architecture of two full-sibling Songliao black pigs harboring extremely different phenotypes of backfat thickness. RESULTS: The total number of reads produced for each sample was in the region of 53 million, and 8,226 novel transcripts were detected. Approximately 92 genes were differentially regulated in the liver tissue, while 31 spliced transcripts and 33 primary transcripts showed significantly differential expression between pigs with higher and lower backfat thickness. Genes that were differentially expressed were involved in the metabolism of various substances, small molecule biochemistry, and molecular transport. CONCLUSIONS: Genes involved in the regulation of lipids could play an important role in lipid and fatty acid metabolism in the liver. These results could help us understand how liver metabolism affects the backfat thickness of pigs.