The genome of the naturally evolved obesity-prone Ossabaw miniature pig
Yaolei Zhang,
Guangyi Fan,
Xin Liu,
Kerstin Skovgaard,
Michael Sturek,
Peter M.H. Heegaard
Affiliations
Yaolei Zhang
Translational Immunology Group, Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark; BGI-Qingdao, BGI-Shenzhen, Qingdao 266555, China; BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China; China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518120, China
Guangyi Fan
BGI-Qingdao, BGI-Shenzhen, Qingdao 266555, China; BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China; China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518120, China
Xin Liu
BGI-Qingdao, BGI-Shenzhen, Qingdao 266555, China; BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China; China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518120, China
Kerstin Skovgaard
Translational Immunology Group, Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
Michael Sturek
Department of Anatomy, Cell Biology, & Physiology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
Peter M.H. Heegaard
Translational Immunology Group, Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark; Innate Immunology Group, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark; Corresponding author
Summary: The feral pigs of Ossabaw Island (USA) have an outstanding propensity to obesity and develop complete metabolic syndrome (MetS) upon prolonged high energy dieting. We now report the first high quality genome of the Ossabaw pig with Contig N50 of ∼6.03 Mb, significantly higher than most other published pig genomes. Genomic comparison to Duroc reveals that variations including SNPs, INDELs and one ∼2 Mb inversion identified in Ossabaw pig may be related to its “thrifty” phenotype. Finally, an important positively selected gene (PSG) was found to be LEPR (leptin receptor) containing two positively selected sites which may lead to pseudogenization of this gene with possible significant effects on obesity and inflammation development. This work provides the first complete mapping of a genome representing a naturally ‘feast and famine’ evolved phenotype of MetS, serving as a blueprint to guide the search for new targets and new biomarkers for obesity comorbidities.
