Growth,Reproductive Performance,Carcass Characteristics and Meat Quality in F1 and F2 Progenies of Somatic Cell-Cloned Pigs

The objective of this study was to examine the health and meat production of cloned sowsand their progenies in order to demonstrate the application of somatic cell cloning to thepig industry. This study compared the growth, reproductive performance, carcasscharacteristics and meat quality of Landrace cloned sows, F1 progenies and F2 progenies.We measured their body weight, growth rate and feed conversion and performed apathological analysis of their anatomy to detect abnormalities. Three of the five clonedpigs were used for a growth test. Cloned pigs grew normally and had characteristicssimilar to those of the control purebred Landrace pigs. Two cloned gilts were bred with aLandrace boar and used for a progeny test. F1 progenies had characteristics similar tothose of the controls. Two of the F1 progeny gilts were bred with a Duroc or Large Whiteboar and used for the progeny test. F2 progenies grew normally. There were no biologicaldifferences in growth, carcass characteristics and amino acid composition among clonedsows, F1 progenies, F2 progenies and conventional pigs. The cloned sows and F1 progeniesshowed normal reproductive performance. No specific abnormalities were observed bypathological analysis, with the exception of periarteritis in the F1 progenies. All pigshad a normal karyotype. These results demonstrate that cloned female pigs and theirprogenies have similar growth, reproductive performance and carcass qualitycharacteristics and that somatic cell cloning could be a useful technique for conservingsuperior pig breeds in conventional meat production.