IBMS BoneKEy | BoneKEy Watch
Zhu et al. Studying pig genetics provides insights into human phenotypic traits
DOI:10.1038/bonekey.2015.106
The pig has been used as a large animal model to study human autoimmune, congenital and bone diseases, as well as diabetes, cancer, hypertension and atherosclerosis. In this study, the authors systematically surveyed about 500 animals from a swine cross using a high density 60 K SNP array, examining phenotypic traits including limb bone length and number of ribs.
The results showed that PLAG1 was a causal gene that determined the length of limb bones, which is in agreement with genome wide association studies carried out for human height.
As a large coherent set of bone expression data was unavailable to the authors they used a network constructed from the adipose tissue to represent the bone physiology. They followed this by cross-referencing with a human protein-protein interaction network.
The analysis highlighted TGFB3 and DAM2IP as candidate causal genes that may determine variation in rib number. It is also worth noting that, in mice, knockout of both Tgfb3 and Tgfb2 decreases rib number.
Editor's comment: The authors make a good case for pigs serving as an animal model in the bone field; thestudy supports the common genetic architecture between swine and humans, as does another recent study. Genome wide studies in farm animals are catching up and provide important information relevant to humans, and cross-fertilize the common traits genetics field.
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