Abstract: The Bactericidal/Permeability-Increasing protein (BPI) plays a very important role in the animal body’s natural defense. It has a series of biological functions such as killing Gram-negative bacteria, the neutralization of endotoxin or lipopolysaccharides, etc. To investigate the effect and mechanism of porcine BPI gene on enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli F18, particularly whether the expression of BPI gene is related to the different breeds. In this study, real-time PCR was used to analyze the expression of BPI gene expression in post-weaning piglets of Yorkshire, Sutai (Resource Population of resistance to E. coli F18) and Meishan. The results showed that there was almost no expression or very low expression of BPI gene in heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, stomach, muscle, thymus and lymph nodes but there was a high expression in the duodenum and jejunum and the expression levels were significantly different from those of the other 9 organs. It also showed that the jejunum and duodenum expression of BPI gene in Sutai was significant higher than Yorkshire and Meishan (p<0.05). The researchers can speculate that the expression of BPI gene was significant difference in different breeds. The researchers can further indicates that the expression of the BPI gene in Sutai piglets could be beneficial to the infection of E. coli. BPI gene might have a direct role against diarrhea and edema disease caused by ECF18 in weaned piglets, the resistance was related to the upregulation of BPI gene expression in the intestine. BPI gene can be identified as a genetic marker for future breeding against E. coli and Salmonella related diseases.
J. Zhu, C. Zi, X.M. Su, L. Liu, Z.D. Du, L. Ye, K.Z. Xie, X.G. Huang, S.L. Wu and W.B. Bao, 2011. Expression Differentiation of BPI Gene in Post-Weaning Piglets of Yorkshire, Sutai and Meishan Breeds. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 10: 3155-3160.