Plant & Animal Genomes XI Conference

January 11-15, 2003
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Poster: Genome Sequencing & ESTs
            

SERIAL ANALYSIS OF GENE EXPRESSION OF PIG ADIPOSE AND MUSCLE TISSUE

¹ Department of Animal Sciences, Purdue University, 125 South Russell Street, West Lafayette, IN, 47907-2042, USA

² Department of Animal Sciences, Purdue University, 915 West State Street, West Lafayette, IN, 47907-2054, USA

Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) facilitates the definition of complete transcriptomes through the analysis of short sequence tags. Three SAGE libraries have been constructed from pig adipose, cardiac, and skeletal muscle tissues. Initial sequencing of 384 clones from the cardiac library identified a total of 5,361 SAGE tags representing up to 3103 unique transcripts. Within this group of SAGE tags, 2586 tags were detected only once. Eighteen SAGE tags appeared 20 or more times and 15 of those tags were found within the TIGR Porcine Gene Index database using the SAGE14 search program. However, two of the four most abundant tags were not identified. The most abundant tag was identified as cytochrome c oxidase subunit II appeared 209 times representing 3.9% of all tags. As additional sequencing of these pig SAGE libraries is completed, it is anticipated that transcripts expressed at frequencies as low as one copy per cell will be detectable. The resulting SAGE tags will begin to define the transcriptomes of the represented tissues and identify transcripts that are differentially expressed among the tissues. The establishment of a pig Unigene database will facilitate the identification of SAGE tags although the majority of SAGE tags will remain anonymous. Extension of SAGE tags through anchored, single-sided PCR will be needed to convert SAGE tags into longer cDNA sequences for identification and other gene expression assays.