Expressed sequence tags analysis of a liver tissue cDNA library from a highly inbred minipig line

Background Porcine liver performing efficient physiological functions in the human body is prerequisite for successful liver xenotransplantation. However, the protein differences between pig and human remain largely unexplored. Therefore, we investigated the liver expression profile of a highly inbred minipig line. Methods A cDNA library was constructed from liver tissue of an inbred Banna minipig. Two hundred randomly selected clones were sequenced then analysed by BLAST programme. Results Alignments of the sequences showed 44% encoded previously known porcine genes. Among the 56% unknown genes, sequences of 72 clones had high similarities with known genes of other species and the similarities to human were mostly above 0.80. The other 40 clones showing no similarity to genes in National Centre for Biotechnology Information are newly discovered, expressed sequence tags specific to liver of inbred Banna minipig. Twenty-two of the 200 clones had full length encoding regions, 38 complete 5' terminal sequences and 140 complete 3' terminal sequences. Conclusion These newly discovered expression sequences may be an important resource for research involving physiological characteristics and medical usage of inbred pigs and contribute to matching studies in xenotransplantation.