Effect of MSTN Mutation on Growth and Carcass Performance in Duroc x Meishan Hybrid Population

Abstract

The Meishan pig is a traditional Chinese native breed, known for its excellent reproduction performance that is widely used in commercial pig production through two-way or three-way crossbreeding systems. However, the lean meat yield of Meishan crossbred pigs is still very low and cannot meet the market demand. To evaluate the lean meat yield of Meishan crossbred pigs, six wild-type Meishan sows were artificially inseminated by using the MSTN^+/- Duroc boar semen in this experiment. Some reproductive performance-related traits of Meishan sows were recorded to ensure that semen from MSTN knockout Duroc boar did not affect offspring production, including total births, live births, sex, and litter weight. In total, 73 piglets were obtained and 63 were alive. Male to female ratio was close to 1: 1. because of factors such as disease, only 43 pigs were utilized, including 28 MSTN mutant pigs (MSTN^+/-) and 15 MSTN homozygous pigs (MSTN^+/+). We compared the growth performance and carcass performance of these full or half-sib populations and found that there were no differences between MSTN^+/- and MSTN^+/+ genotypes for live animal measures including average daily gain (ADG), body dimensions, or ultrasonic measurement of fat thickness when pigs were harvested after 120 days of feeding. Conversely, the MSTN^+/- pigs had higher dressing percentage and lean meat percentage, lower level of carcass fat, larger longissimus muscle area, less percentage of skin and skeleton, thinner average backfat thickness, and lower intramuscular fat (IMF) content than MSTN^+/+ pigs. In conclusion, the production of MSTN^+/- mutant progeny from Meishan females resulted in improved carcass composition, providing a feasible solution to improve the lean meat yield of Chinese local fat-type pig breeds.

Keywords: Meishan pig; Myostatin; gene knockdown; lean meat yield.

Figure 1

Genotype detection of MSTN-mutant progeny. Genomic DNA was extracted from newborn piglets and then was subjected to PCR. The PCR products were used for to detect ZFN-targeted region of MSTN gene to distinguish MSTN^+/+ and MSTN^+/− pigs. NC: H₂O; W: Wild-type, MSTN^+/+ pig; M: Mutation, MSTN^+/− pig.

Figure 2

Real time quantitative PCR results of MSTN. Total RNAs were isolated from LMA of MSTN^+/+ and MSTN^+/− pigs. The expression levels were analyzed using the ∆∆Ct method and normalized against GAPDH. Each sample was run in triplicate. *: p ≤ 0.05.