Growth, Reproductive Performance, Carcass Characteristics and Meat Quality in F1 and F2 Progenies of Somatic Cell-Cloned Pigs

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the health and meat production of cloned sows and their progenies in order to demonstrate the application of somatic cell cloning to the pig industry. This study compared the growth, reproductive performance, carcass characteristics and meat quality of Landrace cloned sows, F1 progenies and F2 progenies. We measured their body weight, growth rate and feed conversion and performed a pathological analysis of their anatomy to detect abnormalities. Three of the five cloned pigs were used for a growth test. Cloned pigs grew normally and had characteristics similar to those of the control purebred Landrace pigs. Two cloned gilts were bred with a Landrace boar and used for a progeny test. F1 progenies had characteristics similar to those of the controls. Two of the F1 progeny gilts were bred with a Duroc or Large White boar and used for the progeny test. F2 progenies grew normally. There were no biological differences in growth, carcass characteristics and amino acid composition among cloned sows, F1 progenies, F2 progenies and conventional pigs. The cloned sows and F1 progenies showed normal reproductive performance. No specific abnormalities were observed by pathological analysis, with the exception of periarteritis in the F1 progenies. All pigs had a normal karyotype. These results demonstrate that cloned female pigs and their progenies have similar growth, reproductive performance and carcass quality characteristics and that somatic cell cloning could be a useful technique for conserving superior pig breeds in conventional meat production.

Reproductive performance and expression of imprinted genes in somatic cell cloned boars

“…Our data in this study reinforce the conclusion that cloned animals which develop to adulthood have normal growth and reproductive performance. It has been reported that no striking differences in health status or reproductive performance are present in somatic cell cloned animals that survive to adulthood or in their progeny compared with conventionally bred cattle (Watanabe & Nagai 2008) and pigs (Shibata et al 2006;Chen et al 2013;Adachi et al 2014). Here, the fertility of all the cloned boars was confirmed, and was found to be similar to that of naturally bred boars (Vallet et al 2013).…”

“…The rate of perinatal death of cloned piglets is high compared with naturally bred piglets (Malmkvist et al 2012;Li et al 2014). Nevertheless, the body weights of cloned pigs that survive the perinatal period are similar to those of control pigs of the same strain (Chen et al 2013;Adachi et al 2014). In the present study, we found that the body weights of 3to 7-month-old cloned pigs were slightly larger than those of naturally bred controls.…”

“…It has been reported that no striking differences in health status or reproductive performance are present in somatic cell cloned animals that survive to adulthood or in their progeny compared with conventionally bred cattle (Watanabe & Nagai 2008) and pigs (Shibata et al 2006;Chen et al 2013;Adachi et al 2014). It has been reported that no striking differences in health status or reproductive performance are present in somatic cell cloned animals that survive to adulthood or in their progeny compared with conventionally bred cattle (Watanabe & Nagai 2008) and pigs (Shibata et al 2006;Chen et al 2013;Adachi et al 2014).…”

Whole-Genome Methylation Analysis Reveals Epigenetic Variation in Cloned and Donor Pigs

“…SCNT can produce genetically identical animals, and the production performance of the cloned animal can be similar to that of the donor. Consequently, SCNT may be an effective method for the production of indigenous target animals for use in epigenetic research (Adachi et al, 2014;Keefer, 2015;Lee et al, 2018). However, somatic cell cloning has a low efficiency success rate, which may be affected by somatic cell type and oocyte activation status (Akagi et al, 2014).…”

“…However, several studies have reported that cloned animals had similar characteristics to the donor animals. For example, it has been reported that cloned Landrace and Jinhua sows grew normally and had similar carcass characteristics and reproductive performance compared to their offering and/or control group (Shibata et al, 2006;Adachi et al, 2014). Therefore, cloning holds great promise as a tool to produce elite breeding livestock.…”