Characterisation of intracellular molecular mechanisms modulated by carnosine in porcine myoblasts under basal and oxidative stress conditions.

Carnosine is a naturally occurring histidine-containing dipeptide present at high concentration in mammalian skeletal muscles. Carnosine was shown to affect muscle contraction, prevent the accumulation of oxidative metabolism by-products and act as an intracellular proton buffer maintaining the muscle acid-base balance. The present study was undertaken to gain additional knowledge about the intracellular mechanisms activated by carnosine in porcine myoblast cells under basal and oxidative stress conditions.

Uterine signaling at the emergence of the embryo from obligate diapause.

Embryonic diapause is the reversible arrest of embryo development prior to implantation under a regime of uterine control that is not well understood. Our objective was to explore uterine modifications associated with the emergence of embryonic diapause in the mink, a species in which embryonic diapause characterizes every gestation. We investigated the uterine transcriptome at reactivation using the suppressive subtractive hybridization technique.

Molecular characterization and expression analysis of the porcine paraoxonase 3 (PON3) gene.

The paraoxonase (PON) gene family has 3 members, PON1, PON2 and PON3, which are known to be involved in oxidative stress-associated processes such as dyslipidemia, diabetes and coronary heart disease. Although PON3 is the least studied paraoxonase, recent findings have shown that it can significantly reduce atherosclerotic lesion formation and obesity in PON3 transgenic mice. Here, we describe the isolation and molecular characterization of the cDNA encoding the porcine PON3 gene.

Visfatin expression is not associated with adipose tissue abundance in the porcine model.

Visfatin was recently identified as a novel adipokine highly enriched in visceral adipose tissue and suggested to play a role in the pathophysiology of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus. However, the biological role of visfatin remains elusive since subsequent studies failed to repeat some of the original findings. We report here the cloning of six porcine visfatin transcript variants, resulting from alternate polyadenylation or alternate splicing of exons.

Modulation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor delta and gamma transcripts in swine endometrial tissue during early gestation.

Recent evidence points to a role for peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) delta and gamma in embryo implantation and survival. In this study, we report the porcine PPARdelta complete coding sequence and mRNA abundance of PPARdelta, PPARgamma1 and gamma2, angiopoietin-like protein 4 (ANGPTL4) and adipocyte determination and differentiation-dependent factor 1 (ADD1) genes in the pregnant sow endometrium. Real-time PCR analysis was used to study the effect of parity (Yorkshire-Landrace multiparous (YL) and nulliparous (YLn)), site of endometrial tissue sampling (between and at embryo attachment sites) in crossbred DurocxYorkshire-Landrace (DYL) sows and stages of pregnancy (non-pregnant, day 15 and day 25 after mating) in Meishan-Landrace (ML) on mRNA levels.

Isolation of differentially expressed genes in conceptuses and endometrial tissue of sows in early gestation.

The implantation period is a critical time for embryonic survival in pigs. During this period, numerous growth factors are secreted by the conceptuses and the uterine endometrium in order to establish pregnancy and to provide a proper environment for embryonic development. It is well known that the Chinese Meishan sows have a larger litter size when compared with occidental sows mainly because of a superior embryonic survival rate.

Effects of breed, parity, and folic Acid supplement on the expression of folate metabolism genes in endometrial and embryonic tissues from sows in early pregnancy.

Folic acid and glycine are factors of great importance in early gestation. In sows, folic acid supplement can increase litter size through a decrease in embryonic mortality, while glycine, the most abundant amino acid in the sow oviduct, uterine, and allantoic fluids, is reported to act as an organic osmoregulator. In this study, we report the characterization of cytoplasmic serine hydroxymethyltransferase (cSHMT), T-protein, and vT-protein (variant T-protein) mRNA expression levels in endometrial and embryonic tissues in gestating sows on Day 25 of gestation according to the breed, parity, and folic acid + glycine supplementation.