Pilot study of large-scale production of mutant pigs by ENU mutagenesis.

N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU) mutagenesis is a powerful tool to generate mutants on a large scale efficiently, and to discover genes with novel functions at the whole-genome level in flies, zebrafish and mice, but it has never been tried in large model animals. We describe a successful systematic three-generation ENU mutagenesis screening in pigs with the establishment of the Chinese Swine Mutagenesis Consortium. A total of 6,770 G1 and 6,800 G3 pigs were screened, 36 dominant and 91 recessive novel pig families with various phenotypes were established.

Molecular characterization of swine leukocyte antigen class I genes by sequence-based and PCR-SSP method in Guizhou minipigs.

The highly polymorphic swine leucocyte antigen (SLA) genes play an important role in swine immune responses to infectious diseases, vaccines and production performance. The pig resource with well defined SLA genes is useful for xenotransplantation and immunological studies. In this study, we have characterized three SLA class I genes (SLA-1, SLA-3, SLA-2) of 22 founder Guizhou minipigs using sequence-based typing method.