Tissue Distribution, SNP Detection and Association Study with Immune Traits of Porcine LBP and CD14 Genes

Lipopolysaccharide binding protein (LBP) and CD14 protein play important roles in the defense against infection of Gram-negative bacteria.In the present study, tissue distribution and polymorphism of porcine LBP and CD14 genes were analyzed.Real-time PCR results showed that the porcine LBP gene was especially highly expressed in liver, while CD14 gene was highly expressed in liver and spleen tissues.A 1,732 bp cDNA fragment of porcine LBP gene and a 1,682 bp genomic DNA fragment of CD14 gene were isolated.Polymorphisms were identified in these two fragments and showed that there were 14 potential SNPs in the porcine LBP gene and 3 potential SNPs in the porcine CD14 gene.Three SNPs, 292G/A (Gly/Ser), 1168G/A (Ala/Thr) of the LBP gene and -61G/A of the CD14 gene, were genotyped using restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method.Association analyses indicated that polymorphism of the 292G/A locus was significantly associated with porcine immune traits hematocrit (HCT), IgG and delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) (p<0.01), and the 1168G/A locus was significantly associated with HCT and mean corpuscular volume (MCV) traits (p<0.05).No significant association was found between the -61G/A locus and immune traits of the pig.Our data indicated that the LBP gene was significantly associated with immune traits of pig.Also, we identified some SNPs which may be useful markers for disease-resistant breeding of pigs.(