Table 1.
Characteristics of the Berkshire pigs used in this study.
Fig 1.
Identification of DEGs by RNA-Seq analysis.
The number of annotated genes using RNA-seq is shown. A total of 14,511 genes in the LLG and 14,824 genes in the SLG were detected. The number of commonly expressed genes among both groups was 13,970.
Fig 2.
(A) The dot graph shows each DEG between the LLG and SLG. log2-fold change between fragments per kilobase of exon per million reads mapped (FPKM) in the SLG and LLG according to the Cufflinks package are presented along the x axis. Red dots represent significantly altered DEGs between the LLG and SLG (p < 0.05, fold change > 1.5, the decimal system). The y axis indicates significance as -log (p value). (B) The number of downregulated and upregulated DEGs in the LLG compared with the SLG.
Fig 3.
GO enrichment analysis was performed for the upregulated (A) and downregulated (B) DEGs. The x axis indicates the significance of DEGs as −log (p value). The number of genes in each category is shown on the y axis, as indicated in parentheses.
Table 2.
List of DEGs between LLG and SLG.
Fig 4.
RT-qPCR analysis of EGR2, PHEROC and LIPG in placental tissue.
Three different placentas from LLG and SLG were prepared immediately following delivery and subjected to RT-qPCR analysis. The fold change of validation (upper panel) and RNA-Seq (lower panel) for the (A) EGR2, (B) PHEROC and (C) LIPG genes are presented. The RT-qPCR data were analyzed by relative quantification using 2-ΔΔCt. Data are expressed as means ± standard deviation (S.D.). Each experiment was performed in triplicate. *, p < 0.05 versus SLG.
Fig 5.
RT-qPCR analysis to assess TCF12, CTNNB1, WNT11, WNT9B and IL-6 mRNA expression.
RNAs from three different individual placentas each were prepared from LLG and SLG. RT-qPCR was performed using gene-specific primers. PPIA was used as a universal control. The RT-qPCR data were analyzed by relative quantification using 2-ΔΔCt. Data are expressed as means ± standard deviation (S.D.). Each experiment was performed in triplicate. *, p < 0.05 versus SLG.