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. 2024 Aug 26;14(17):2476.
doi: 10.3390/ani14172476.

Heat Stress Induces Alterations in Gene Expression of Actin Cytoskeleton and Filament of Cellular Components Causing Gut Disruption in Growing-Finishing Pigs

Yohan Choi  1 , Hyunju Park  1 , Joeun Kim  1 , Hyunseo Lee  2 , Minju Kim  2   3
Affiliations

Heat Stress Induces Alterations in Gene Expression of Actin Cytoskeleton and Filament of Cellular Components Causing Gut Disruption in Growing-Finishing Pigs

Yohan Choi et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

We aimed to investigate the impact of heat stress (HS) on the expression of tight junction (TJ) proteins and the interaction between genes affecting intestinal barrier function using transcriptomics in the porcine jejunum. Twenty-four barrows (crossbred Yorkshire × Landrace × Duroc; average initial body weight, 56.71 ± 1.74 kg) were placed in different temperatures (normal temperature [NT]; HS) and reared for 56 days. At the end of the experiment, jejunal samples were collected from three pigs per treatment for transcriptome and reverse-transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) analyses. We identified 43 differentially expressed genes, involving five Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathways, eight molecular functions, seven cellular components (CCs), and nine biological processes, using gene ontology enrichment analysis. Genes associated with the actin cytoskeleton, filament-binding pathways, and TJ proteins were selected and analyzed by RT-qPCR. Significant differences in relative mRNA expression showed that downregulated genes in the HS group included ZO1, CLDN1, OCLN, PCK1, and PCK2, whereas ACTG2, DES, MYL9, MYLK, TPM1, TPM2, CNN1, PDLIM3, and PCP4 were upregulated by HS (p < 0.05). These findings indicate that HS in growing-finishing pigs induces depression in gut integrity, which may be related to genes involved in the actin cytoskeleton and filaments of CC.

Keywords: actin cytoskeleton; gut integrity; heat stress; intestinal permeability; pigs; tight junction.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Summary of the DEGs (DEG; p < 0.05, ≥2.0-fold change) in the porcine jejunum under HS temperature. (A) PCA based on DEGs of the NT and HS groups; (B) volcano plot of HS and NT groups; (C) clustering heatmap of DEGs in HS and NT groups; (D) functional annotation chart of the DEGs in NT and HS groups. NT, normal temperature; HS, heat stress.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Network analysis of the effect of heat on porcine jejunum in the DEGs of transcriptomic analysis using the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes (STRING). The network displays the interaction between DEGs based on HS and NT (fold change ≥ 2.0; normalized data (log2) ≥ 4; and p < 0.05).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Impact of HS on relative mRNA levels in selected genes. * indicates a significance of p < 0.05; ** indicates a significance of p < 0.01. NT, normal temperature; HS, heat stress.
Figure 4
Figure 4
KEGG pathway of cytoskeleton in muscle cells.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

This study was funded by the Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science and Technology Development, Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea (Grant number: PJ01681002).

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