Cloning, comparative characterization of porcine SCAP gene, and identification of its two splice variants

Molecular characterisation of the buffalo SCAP gene and its association with milk production traits in water buffaloes

The study reported in this Research Communication was conducted to investigate the molecular characterisation of buffalo SCAP gene, expression analysis, and the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms and milk production traits in 384 buffaloes. Sequence analysis revealed the SCAP gene had an open reading frame of 3837 bp encoding 1279 amino acids. A ubiquitous expression profile of SCAP gene was detected in various tissues with extreme predominance in the mammary gland during early lactation. Moreover, eleven SNPs in buffalo SCAP gene were identified, six of them (g.1717600A>G, g.1757922C>T, g.1758953G>A, g.1759142C>T, g.1760740G>A, and g.1766036T>C) were found to be significantly associated with 305-day milk yield. Thus, buffalo SCAP could sever as a candidate gene affecting milk production traits in buffalo and the identified SNPs might potentially be genetic markers.

Advances in swine biomedical model genomics

This review is a short update on the diversity of swine biomedical models and the importance of genomics in their continued development. The swine has been used as a major mammalian model for human studies because of the similarity in size and physiology, and in organ development and disease progression. The pig model allows for deliberately timed studies, imaging of internal vessels and organs using standard human technologies, and collection of repeated peripheral samples and, at kill, detailed mucosal tissues. The ability to use pigs from the same litter, or cloned or transgenic pigs, facilitates comparative analyses and genetic mapping. The availability of numerous well defined cell lines, representing a broad range of tissues, further facilitates testing of gene expression, drug susceptibility, etc. Thus the pig is an excellent biomedical model for humans. For genomic applications it is an asset that the pig genome has high sequence and chromosome structure homology with humans. With the swine genome sequence now well advanced there are improving genetic and proteomic tools for these comparative analyses. The review will discuss some of the genomic approaches used to probe these models. The review will highlight genomic studies of melanoma and of infectious disease resistance, discussing issues to consider in designing such studies. It will end with a short discussion of the potential for genomic approaches to develop new alternatives for control of the most economically important disease of pigs, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), and the potential for applying knowledge gained with this virus for human viral infectious disease studies.