Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Aug 27:9:66.
doi: 10.1186/s40104-018-0280-y. eCollection 2018.

Fat deposition deficiency is critical for the high mortality of pre-weanling newborn piglets

Ting He #  1 , Long He #  1 , Enen Gao  1 , Jinhua Hu  1 , Jianjun Zang  1 , Chunlin Wang  1 , Jinshan Zhao  2 , Xi Ma  1   2   3
Affiliations

Fat deposition deficiency is critical for the high mortality of pre-weanling newborn piglets

Ting He et al. J Anim Sci Biotechnol. .

Abstract

Background: The high mortality of pre-weanling piglets is a dominant challenge which severely restricts the development of pig industry. A number of factors including nutrients imbalance and temperature variation during postnatal period of piglets have been reported to closely associated with the high mortality of postnatal piglets. This study aims to find out the relationship between fat deposition and survival of newborn piglets.

Results: There were no differences in organ coefficient and bone density between the surviving and dead piglets (P > 0.05). The body weight and the fat deposition in the dead piglets were lower than the live individuals (P < 0.05). Consistently, the average sizes of white adipocytes in back and abdominal adipose tissues of dead piglets were smaller than the survivals (P < 0.05). The protein expression levels of adipocyte differentiation markers PPARγ and C/EBPα in the back and abdominal adipose tissues were lower in dead piglets compared to live piglets. The mRNA expressions of thermogenic markers PGC1α and PRDM16 in adipose tissues were decreased in the dead piglets (P < 0.05). The microarray of back fat samples from the surviving and dead piglets were conducted; two down-regulated genes namely AAMDC and CASTOR1 were identified from the dead piglets. According to quantitative real-time PCR (RT-PCR) analysis, the mRNA expression of AAMDC decreased, whereas CASTOR1 expression elevated in the dead piglets compared to the surviving piglets (P < 0.05).

Conclusions: The fat deposition and adipocyte differentiation in the dead piglets are insufficient compared to the surviving piglets, which may attenuate the thermogenic ability of white adipose tissue (WAT). Our data indicate that fat deposition in newborn piglets is vital to their survival.

Keywords: Fat deposition; Mortality; Pre-weanling piglets; Thermogenesis; White adipose tissue.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

All animal management and experimental procedures followed the animal care protocols approved by the China Agricultural University Animal Care and Use Ethics Committee.Not applicable.The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The fat deposition and white adipocyte differentiation between the surviving and dead piglets. a-b, The average size of white adipocytes in both back and abdominal fat tissues of dead piglets were smaller than the surviving pigs. * P < 0.05; c-d, The expressions of PPARγ and C/EBPα in both back and abdominal fat tissues were less in the dead piglets than the survivals. * P < 0.05, n = 10
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The mRNA expression of PGC1α and PRDM16 in back and abdominal fat tissues between the surviving and dead piglets. a-b, The relative mRNA levels of PGC1α and PRDM16 were elevated in both fat pads in surviving piglets compared to the dead piglets. *P < 0.05, n = 10
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The immunostaining of PGC1α or PRDM16 in back and abdominal fat tissues between the surviving and dead piglets. a-d, The PGC1α and PRDM16 expressions in both back and abdominal fat tissues were higher in living piglets than dead piglets
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Candidate genes involving in the adipose tissue development between the surviving and dead piglet were screened out. a, The relative mRNA level of AAMDC was elevated in both fat pads in surviving piglets compared to the dead piglets. b, The relative mRNA level of CASTOR1 was decreased in both fat pads in surviving piglets compared to the dead piglets. * P < 0.05, n = 10
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Nowak R, Porter RH, Lévy F, Orgeur P, Schaal B. Role of mother-young interactions in the survival of offspring in domestic mammals. Rev Reprod. 2000;5:153–163. doi: 10.1530/ror.0.0050153. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Baxter EM, Jarvis S, Death RB, Ross DW, Robson SK, Farish M, et al. Investigating the behavioural and physiological indicators of neonatal survival in pigs. Theriogenology. 2008;69:773–783. doi: 10.1016/j.theriogenology.2007.12.007. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Pedersen L, Schild SL, Malmkvist J. The influence of the thermal environment and other early life events on growth rate of piglets during lactation. Animal. 2015;9:1529–1535. doi: 10.1017/S1751731115001007. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Amdi C, Jensen LL, Oksbjerg N, Hansen CF. Supplementing newborn intrauterine growth restricted piglets with a bolus of porcine colostrum raises rectal temperatures one degree Celsius. J Anim Sci. 2017;95:2968–2976. - PubMed
    1. Gao Y, Qimuge NR, Qin J, Cai R, Li X, Chu GY, et al. Acute and chronic cold exposure differentially affects the browning of porcine white adipose tissue. Animal. 2017;16:1–7. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources