We observed no differences in the content of the remaining five types of bacteria among different intestinal segments of piglets in the two feeding groups (Table 4). Table 4 Six types of bacteria were counted (logCFU/g of intestinal contents) in the duodenum, jejunum, ileum, and colon of piglets. Lysozyme Transgenic Milk Influenced Gastrointestinal Morphology in Young Pigs To selleck chemical Erlotinib evaluate the influence of lysozyme transgenic milk on gastrointestinal morphology in young pigs, villus height, crypt depth, and the villus height to crypt depth ratio were measured (Table 5). We observed no significant difference in villus height among all intestinal segments between piglets nursed by transgenic sows and those by non-transgenic sows.

However, the crypt depths of piglets nursed by non-transgenic sows were deeper than those nursed by transgenic sows in the duodenum (p<0.001), jejunum (p<0.001), and ileum (p<0.001). In the jejunum, the villus height and the villus height to crypt depth ratio of piglets nursed by transgenic sows were much higher than those from the control group, although there were no significant differences (p=0.055 and 0.074, respectively). Table 5 Histological measurements from the duodenum, jejunum, ileum of piglets. Discussion We have sucessfully produced transgenic pigs with human lysozyme expressing in milk at 1500-fold higher than that of the native pig lysozyme and greatly elevated lysozyme level in nursing piglets. This report is the first to date regarding the influence of in vivo rhLZ on piglets nursed by rhLZ transgenic sows under naturalistic conditions.

A previous study demonstrated that high rhLZ concentrations (1.405 g/L) can be expressed in mouse mammary gland tissues [30], but the rhLZ concentrations in pig and bovine mammary gland tissues were quite lower than expected [20], [25]. However, in the present study, we successfully generated transgenic pigs with high rhLZ expression levels, which was much higher Anacetrapib than that achieved in previous studies. We also showed that the expression plasmid pBC2-HLY-NEOR efficiently expressed rhLZ in pigs. In contrast to the results of previous reports, these differences may due to the integrity of gene control regions and the position effect. We have already obtained the F2 generation, and the proportion of rhLZ-positive transgenic pigs in each generation approached a ratio of 11 (F1=46.71% and F2=46.91%). Segregation analysis indicated a typical Mendelian inheritance, suggesting a single locus or closely linked loci within the gene insertion. rhLZ expression was stable and persistent during the lactation period of transgenic pigs. The hLZ gene and its expression were heritable from the founder transgenic animals to their offspring.