Abstract
Fat deposition, which influences pork production, meat quality and growth efficiency, is an economically important trait in pigs. Numerous studies have demonstrated that stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD), a key enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of saturated fatty acids into monounsaturated fatty acids, is associated with fatty acid composition in pigs. As SCD was observed to be significantly induced in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes differentiation, we hypothesized that it plays a role in porcine adipocyte differentiation and fat deposition. In this study, we revealed that SCD is highly expressed in adipose tissues from seven-day-old piglets, compared to its expression in tissues from four-month-old adult pigs. Moreover, we found that SCD and lipogenesis-related genes were induced significantly in differentiated porcine adipocytes. Using CRISPR/Cas9 technology, we generated SCD-/- porcine embryonic fibroblasts (PEFs) and found that the loss of SCD led to dramatically decreased transdifferentiation efficiency, as evidenced by the decreased expression of known lipid synthesis-related genes, lower levels of oil red O staining and significantly lower levels of triglyceride content. Our study demonstrates the critical role of SCD expression in porcine adipocyte differentiation and paves the way for identifying it as the promising candidate gene for less fat deposition in pigs.
Highlights
Fat deposition is the key economic trait in pig production that affects growth rate, pork production and meat quality [1,2]
With the rapid development of high-throughput screening technologies, numerous candidate genes and noncoding RNAs that may affect the traits of fat deposition and fatty acid (FA) composition in pigs have been screened over recent decades [3,4,5]
Stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD), a well recognized rate-limiting enzyme in the biogenesis of endogenous monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), mainly oleate and palmitoleate, has been reported to serve a protective role to allow for continued MUFAs synthesis during dietary unsaturated fat insufficiency [6]
Summary
Fat deposition is the key economic trait in pig production that affects growth rate, pork production and meat quality [1,2]. Liver-specific SCD1-KO mice were protected from high carbohydrate-induced obesity and hepatic steatosis, because of reduced de novo lipogenesis and decreased fatty acid synthesis [9] The results from these studies demonstrate the critical roles of SCD1 in regulating fat deposition and lipid metabolism. The expression of SCD alleles showed significant allelic imbalance in adipose tissue, and SCD was a potential molecular target for regulating porcine fatness traits [15]. Based on these observations, we hypothesized that SCD plays a key role in porcine adipocyte differentiation. We generated SCD-KO porcine embryonic fibroblasts (PEFs) using the CRISPR/Cas method and investigated their role in adipogenesis
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