Transcriptional response of porcine skeletal muscle to feeding a linseed-enriched diet to growing pigs

Background: To investigate the effect of feeding a linseed-enriched diet to growing-finishing pigs on gene expression in skeletal muscle, pigs were fed with a linseed-enriched diet for 0, 30, 60 and 90 d. Transcriptional profiles of longissimus dorsi muscle were measured using Affymetrix Genechip. Results: Results showed that 264 genes were identified as differentially expressed genes (DEGs). The strongest transcriptional response was clearly observed at 30 d. DEGs were assigned to several main functional terms, including transcription, apoptosis, intracellular receptor-mediated signaling, muscle organ development, fatty acid metabolic process, cell motion, regulation of glucose metabolic process, spermatogenesis and regulation of myeloid cell differentiation. We also found that transcriptional changs of several transcription cofactors might contribute to n-3 PUFAs regulated gene expression. In addition, the increased expression of IGF-1, insulin signaling pathway and the metabolism of amino acids might involve in the muscle growth induced by feeding a linseed enriched diet. The results also provide the new evidence that the expression changes of PTPN1, HK2 and PGC-1a might contribute to the regulation of insulin sensitivity by n-3 PUFAs. Conclusions: Our finding provided correlative evidence that feeding the linseed enriched diet affact expression of genes involved in insulin signaling pathway and the metabolism of amino acids.