Pig models reveal the interplay between fatty acids and cytokines in skeletal muscle

Abstract

Fatty acids, particularly those derived from plant and animal oils, play roles in physiological functions and metabolic regulation in pigs. Imbalances in the ratio of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) may influence inflammatory responses, including the modulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines. This study aimed to investigate the gene co-expression profiles in the skeletal muscle of pigs fed diets supplemented with 3.0% soybean, canola, or fish oils, correlating these profiles with cytokine abundance and identifying hub genes associated with immune-related pathways using a systems biology approach. Skeletal muscle samples from 27 pigs were subjected to RNA sequencing and weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) to construct gene co-expression networks. The concentrations of six cytokines (IL-10, IFN-γ, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-18, and TNF-α) were quantified in muscle tissue using ELISA. Functional enrichment analysis and hub gene identification revealed several key genes involved in immune function and fatty acid metabolism. WGCNA uncovered distinct co-expression modules associated with specific dietary oil treatments. These findings provide new insights into the immunomodulatory effects of soybean, canola, and fish oils, highlighting the relevance of nutrigenomics in understanding gene-diet interactions in pigs.

Keywords: ELISA; Gene expression; Inflammation; Lipids; Swine; WGCNA.

Fig. 1

Heatmap shows in the y-axis the module eigengenes associated with the cytokines in each treatment (x-axis). Pearson correlation is the top number whereas the p-value is the bottom number between brackets. The red colors present a positive correlation and blue colors present a negative correlation. TNFa: tumor necrosis factor-α, IFNg: interferon-γ, IL: interleukin, T1: soybean oil diet, T2: canola oil diet, T3: fish oil diet.

Fig. 2

BiNGO enrichment for ME Blue for FDR lower or equal to 0.05. The color scale orange-yellow can be defined by p-values (Color-scaled yellow-orange has decreased corrected p-values while compared to white ellipses, which have no significative p-values).

Fig. 3

BiNGO enrichment for ME Greenyellow for FDR lower or equal to 0.05. The color scale orange-yellow can be defined by p-values (orange has lower corrected p-values than yellow).