Comparative metabolomic analysis of caecal digesta between Jinhua pig and Landrace pig

The metabolic difference in caecal digesta between Jinhua pig and Landrace pig was compared. Twenty weaned piglets at 28 days of age, including ten Landrace pigs (a Western pig breed) and ten Jinhua pigs (a Chinese native pig breed), were randomly selected and allocated into two groups. The pigs were fed the same corn-soybean diet on the same pig farm. At the age of 240 days, all pigs of each group were slaughtered, the digesta in the caecum of the twenty pigs were collected for metabolomic analysis and determination of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). The results showed that a total of 56 different metabolites (22 metabolites named and 34 metabolites without identification) were detected in caecal digesta using a gas chromatography time-of-flight/mass spectrometry (GC-TOF-MS)-based metabolomic approach. Forty-six of the 56 metabolites were upregulated significantly (P < 0.05) in Landrace group compared with Jinhua group. The metabolic pathways with different impact value in which different metabolites were mainly involved were tyrosine metabolism, citrate cycle and steroid biosynthesis. In addition, we found that Landrace accumulated more SCFAs in caecal digesta, while the concentrations of acetic acid (P < 0.01) and butyric acid (P < 0.05) in caecal digesta of Jinhua pig were markedly lower than those of Landrace pig. Collectively, our study was the first to compare the metabolic difference in caecal digesta between Jinhua pig and Landrace pig using a metabolomics approach, which might be used as a potential metabolomics mechanism to research different breeds of pigs.