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Vertebrate reproductive science and technology
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Global proteomic analysis of serum during early pregnancy in the pig using data-independent acquisition mass spectrometry with verification by parallel reaction monitoring

Haiyun Xin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2520-7492 A B C # , Fanming Meng A B C # , Baohong Li A , Sutian Wang A B , Bin Hu A B and Jianhao Li A B *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A The State Key Laboratory of Livestock and Poultry Breeding/Guangdong Key Laboratory of Animal Breeding and Nutrition/Institute of Animal Science/Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China.

B Maoming Branch, Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Maoming, Guangdong 525000, China.

C Qingyuan Longfa Pig Breeding Co. Ltd/Guangdong Engineering Technology Research Center of Pig Breeding, Yingde, Guangdong 513057, China.

* Correspondence to: 3562047763@qq.com
# These authors contributed equally to this paper

Handling Editor: Gilles Charpigny

Reproduction, Fertility and Development 34(18) 1115-1127 https://doi.org/10.1071/RD22105
Published online: 19 October 2022

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing

Abstract

Context: The current pregnancy diagnosis is generally not ideal in accuracy and efficiency, and the physiological process of early pregnancy in pig remains unclarified.

Aims: This study aimed to evaluate protein expression profiles and identify typical proteins of early pregnancy for more understanding of physiological processes.

Methods: Data-independent acquisition-based (DIA) quantitative proteomic analysis was performed to compare the serum proteome profiles on days 0, 5, 12, 16, and 19 of gestation in Tibetan pig. Parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) was subsequently performed to verify relative expression level.

Key results: 396 proteins were detected, of which 113 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were identified. Functional annotation and pathway analysis indicated that the DEPs were mainly involved in catalytic activity, metabolic processes and the proteasome. Four candidate DEPs (talin 1, profilin, carbonic anhydrase, and HGF activator) showed consistent expression trends in both DIA and PRM approaches.

Conclusions: The DIA based proteomic methods indicate the involvement of numerous serum proteins in early pregnancy physiological function in pigs. The combination of DIA-PRM based global proteomic analysis may provide insights for function study and pregnancy diagnosis biomarkers.

Implications: The global proteomic analyses performed here have increased the knowledge of early pregnancy in Tibetan swine and provide potential methods for pregnancy detection.

Keywords: differentially expressed proteins, pig, pregnancy diagnosis, quantitative proteomics, reproduction, serum, Tibetan swine.


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