Breed, gender and anatomic location-specific expression patterns of the porcine insig-1 and insig-2 genes

The insulin-induced genes (insig-1 and insig-2) played important roles inadipocyte differentiation and lipogenesis. To determine the breed, gender and anatomic location-specific expression patterns of insig-1 and insig-2, we measured their mRNA abundances in different adipose tissues from male and female pigs for leaner and fatty breeds using a qRT-PCR approach. In accordance with the well-characterized role of insig-1 and insig-2 in promoting fatty acid synthesis, we found that, compared with the leaner breed, the fatty breed had the higher mRNA abundances of the two genes. The subcutaneous adipose tissues with the higher adipocyte cell diameters showed the higher mRNA abundance for the two genes compared with the mRNA abundance in the visceral adipose tissues. The clear positive correlation between adipocyte cell diameter and mRNA abundance of insig-1 and insig-2 also highlighted their critical roles in adipose deposition. These results suggested that insig-1 and insig-2 were related to porcine adipose deposition and are thus potential candidate genes for the pig fat mass trait.   Key words: Insulin-induced gene 1 and 2, pig, adipose deposition, qRT-PCR.