Analysis of gene expression for microminipig liver transcriptomes using parallel long‐read technology and short‐read sequencing

ABSTRACT Microminipig is one of the smallest minipigs that has emerged as a possible experimental animal model, because they share many anatomical and/or physiological similarities with humans, including the coronary artery distribution in heart, the digestive physiology, the kidney size and its structure, and so on. However, information on gene expression profiles, including those of drug‐metabolizing phase I and II enzymes, in microminipig is limited. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to identify transcripts in microminipig livers and determine gene expression profiles. De novo assembly and expression analyses of microminipig transcripts were conducted with liver samples from three male and three female microminipigs using parallel long‐read and short‐read sequencing technologies. After unique sequences had been automatically aligned by assembling software, the mean contig length of 50,843 transcripts was 707 bp. The expression profiles of cytochrome P450 (P450) 1A2, 2C, 2E1, and 3A genes in livers in microminipigs were similar to those in humans. Liver carboxylesterase (CES) precursor, liver CES‐like, UDP‐glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) 2C1‐like, amine sulfotransferase (SULT)‐like, N‐acetyltransferases (NAT8), and glutathione S‐transferase (GST) A2 genes, which are relatively unknown genes in pigs and/or humans, were expressed strongly. Furthermore, no significant sex differences were observed in the gene expression profiles of phase I enzymes, ...
Source: Biopharmaceutics and Drug Disposition - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Tags: Original Paper Source Type: research