Introduction: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have the ability to proliferate in vivo with a large variety of differentiation potentials and therefore are widely used as an ideal material for cell therapy. MSCs derived from pig and human sources are similar in many aspects, such as cell immunophenotype and functional characteristics. However, differences in proteomics and the molecular mechanisms of cell functions between porcine bone marrow MSCs (BM-MSCs) and umbilical cord MSCs (UC-MSCs) are largely unknown. To the best of our knowledge, MSCs collected from different tissue have specific phenotype and differentiation ability in response to microenvironment, known as a niche. Methods: Porcine BM-MSCs and UC-MSCs were evaluated with flow cytometric and adipogenic and osteogenic differentiation analyses. We used isobaric tagging for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ), combined with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, to identify differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) between these two types of MSCs. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway and phenotype analyses were used to understand the links between cell migration ability and DEPs. Results: Two separate iTRAQ experiments were conducted, identifying 95 DEPs (95% confidence interval). Five of these proteins were verified by Western blotting. These 95 DEPs were classified in terms of biological regulation, metabolic process, developmental process, immune system process, reproduction, death, growth, signaling, localization, response to stimulus, biological adhesion, and cellular component organization. Our study is the first to show results indicating that porcine BM-MSCs have a higher migration capability than UC-MSCs. Finally, one of the DEPs, Vimentin, was verified to have a positive role in MSC migration. Conclusions: These results represent the first attempt to use proteomics specifically targeted to porcine MSCs of different tissues. The identified components should help reveal a variety of tissue-specific functions in tissue-derived MSC populations and could serve as important tools for the regeneration of particular tissues in future stem cell-based tissue engineering studies using animal models.

This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of fucoidan in ameliorating hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂)-induced oxidative stress to porcine intestinal epithelial cell line (IPEC-1). The cell viability test was initially performed to screen out appropriate concentrations of H₂O₂ and fucoidan. After that, cells were exposed to H₂O₂ in the presence or absence of pre-incubation with fucoidan. Hydrogen peroxide increased the apoptotic and necrotic rate, boosted reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, and disturbed the transcriptional expression of genes associated with antioxidant defense and apoptosis in IPEC-1 cells. Pre-incubation with fucoidan inhibited the increases in necrosis and ROS accumulation induced by H₂O₂. Consistently, in the H₂O₂-treated IPEC-1 cells, fucoidan normalized the content of reduced glutathione as well as the mRNA abundance of NAD(P)H quinone dehydrogenase 1 and superoxide dismutase 1 while it prevented the overproduction of malondialdehyde. Moreover, H₂O₂ stimulated the translocation of nuclear factor-erythroid 2-related factor-2 to the nucleus of IPEC-1 cells, but this increase was further promoted by fucoidan pre-treatment. The results suggest that fucoidan is effective in protecting IPEC-1 cells against oxidative damage induced by H₂O₂, which may help in developing appropriate strategies for maintaining the intestinal health of young piglets.

Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (M. hyopneumoniae, Mhp) is the causative agent of mycoplasma pneumonia of swine (MPS). M. hyopneumoniae infection causes inflammation in pigs and leads to considerable economic losses in the pig industry. Pregnane X receptor (PXR) is a pluripotent gene regulatory protein that plays an important role in regulating cytochrome P-450 (CYP) in pigs in the context of inflammatory responses, drug metabolism, homeostasis, etc. We previously reported that cytochrome P450 3A29 (CYP3A29) expression was significantly upregulated in pigs infected with M. hyopneumoniae compared with healthy control pigs. This experiment mainly focused on identifying the role of PXR in the regulation of CYP3A29 and inflammatory factors after M. hyopneumoniae infection by establishing pig alveolar macrophage (PAM) cells in which PXR was overexpressed or silenced. Our results showed that the overexpression of PXR could significantly improve the protein and the mRNA expression levels of CYP3A29 with and without M. hyopneumoniae infection in PAM cells. After the expression of PXR was inhibited, protein and mRNA expression levels of CYP3A29 were significantly reduced with and without M. hyopneumoniae infection in PAM cells. Moreover, PXR can regulate the mRNA expression levels of IL-6 and IL-8 during M. hyopneumoniae infection of PAM cells. In conclusion, these results suggest that PXR positively regulates CYP3A29 expression during the inflammatory response caused by M. hyopneumoniae infection.

Backgrounds: Objective of this study is to conduct a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of first-parity reproductive traits in Suzi pigs to identify significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) or candidate genes influencing these traits. Methods: This research employed technologies including the Zhongxin 50K SNP chip, simplified genome sequencing, resequencing, and the 100K SNP liquid chip to perform genome-wide SNP detection on 898 Suzi sows. Genotype data and phenotypic data were combined to do GWAS, gene annotation, and enrichment analysis. Results: Results showed that this study obtained phenotypes of 33 first-parity reproductive traits from 574 sows. GWAS results indicated there were 10 first-parity reproductive traits significantly associated with SNPs, and these traits were AFS, AFF, NNB, NH, NW, NS, NM, ND, PB, and CCN. These 10 traits were significantly associated with 60 SNPs, with 15 (25%) located on chromosome 2-the highest proportion. The SNPs significantly associated with AFS and AFF were largely identical. Genome-wide variance component analysis revealed that among the 10 traits with significantly associated SNPs in GWAS, there were 5 traits that exhibited genome-wide heritability ≥ 0.01. Trait of NM showed the highest heritability (0.65–0.7). These significantly associated SNPs annotated 20 candidate genes, including ADAMTS19, PROP1, ZNF354B, PCARE, LUZP2, VIRMA, EPHA5, AAAS, SLCO3A1-SV2B, KIF18A-BDNF, SERGEF, DYNLRB2, HNF4G, CATSPERD, HSD11B1L, DICER1, RARG, PCDHAC2, KRT79, and HSD17B2. GO analysis of candidate genes revealed that the top three biological processes were cell adhesion, positive regulation of cell projection organization, and positive regulation of neuron projection development. KEGG results showed the top three pathways were inositol phosphate metabolism, glutamatergic synapse, and phosphatidylinositol signaling system. Conclusions: These findings provide a foundation for the reproductive breeding of Suzi pigs and offer new insights into biological breeding in pigs.