Abstract

East Asian consumers such as Korean and Japanese prefer the roasted pork, because lots of the researches have been carried out for the genetic improvement of intramuscular fat contents in pig. The fatty acid binding protein (FABP)4 and stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD), related to lipid metabolism are critical genes responsible for the fat content trait in meat, and the Adiponectin is a gene involved in lipid metabolism as an adipocyte-secreting hormone. Here, we performed the expression profiling of three lipid metabolism-related genes, according to different pig breeds, and tissues, and also applied an epigenetic technique to obtain the epigenetic insights into their differential expressions. The FABP4 expression level in muscle tissue increased at the young stage, but gradually decreased after adult stage. Adiponectin gene was expressed more significantly in fat tissues than in other tissues. Fat-specific SCD gene was much more expressed in the adipose tissue of Berkshire than that of Yorkshire at 80 kg stage. The CG methylation analysis of SCDpromoter revealed that -58^th, -471^st and -540^th cytosines from the transcription initiation site were more methylated in muscle tissues than in fat tissues and in contrast, -68, -96 and -266^th cytosines were more methylated in fat tissues than in muscle tissues, which allows explaining the epigenetic mechanism of tissue-specific SCD expression. Taken together, our data may provide an important resource for the technical development of intramuscular fat-related molecular marker.

Key words: Adiponectin, DNA methylation, FABP4, pork, SCD.