Submitted May 12, 2003
Returned for revision May 29, 2003
Accepted July 8, 2003
Female Reproductive Tract
Isolation of Differentially Expressed Genes in Conceptuses and Endometrial Tissue of Sows in Early Gestation
Maud Vallée ,
Danièle Beaudry ,
Claude Roberge ,
J. Jacques Matte ,
Richard Blouin ,
and
Marie-France Palin *
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: palinmf{at}em.agr.ca.
Abstract
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 to occidental sows mainly because of a superior embryonic survival rate. As a further step towards understanding the mechanisms involved in embryonic survival, we used a suppression subtractive hybridization technique to identify genes that were differentially expressed in Meishan-Landrace conceptuses and endometrial tissue at Day 15 of gestation when compared to conventional Landrace sows. Of the 1000 subtractive clones isolated from each library, 137 endometrial and 166 conceptus enriched cDNAs were single-pass sequenced and examined by BLAST analysis for identification. Sixty two percent of the clones found in the endometrial library, and 78% of the clones found in the conceptus library showed homology with known genes. Among these genes, the 20 most relevant to embryonic survival based on the available literature were validated through Real Time RT-PCR analysis. Our results show that suppression subtractive hybridization is a powerful method applicable in identifying putative candidate genes that might be used for selection of high litter size breeds.
Key words:
Conceptus •
Early development •
Implantation •
Uterus
