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ARS Home » Plains Area » Clay Center, Nebraska » U.S. Meat Animal Research Center » Livestock Bio-Systems » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #391247
Research Project: Improving Livestock Production by Developing Reproductive and Precision Management Technologies

Location: Livestock Bio-Systems

Title: Mechanisms regulating the initiation of porcine conceptus elongation

Author
item Miles, Jeremy
item WALSH, SOPHIE - University Of Nebraska
item Rempel, Lea
item PANNIER, ANGELA - University Of Nebraska

Submitted to: Molecular Reproduction and Development
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/1/2022
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Significant increases in litter size within commercial swine production over the past decades have led to increases in preweaning piglet mortality due to increased within-litter birthweight variation, typically due to mortality of the smallest littermate piglets. Therefore, identifying mechanisms to reduce variation in placental development and subsequent fetal growth are critical to normalizing birthweight variation and improving piglet survivability in high-producing commercial pigs. A major contributing factor to induction of within-litter variation occurs during the peri-implantation period as the pig blastocyst elongates from spherical to filamentous morphology in a short period of time and rapidly begins superficial implantation. During this period, there is significant within-litter variation in the timing and extent of elongation among littermates. As a result, delays and deficiencies in conceptus elongation not only contribute directly to early embryonic mortality, but also influence subsequent within-litter birthweight variation. This review will highlight key aspects of conceptus elongation and provide some recent evidence pertaining to specific mechanisms from -omics studies (i.e., metabolomics of the uterine environment and transcriptomics of the conceptus) that may specifically regulate the initiation of conceptus elongation to identify potential factors to reduce within-litter variation and improve piglet survivability.