Molecular cloning and expression profiling of G protein coupled receptor 120 in Landrace pig and different Chinese indigenous pig breeds

G protein coupled receptor 120 (GPR120) is a receptor of unsaturated long-chain fatty acids, especially ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, and plays important roles in dietary fat sensing, inflammation and adipogenesis controlling, therefore emerged as a new potential target for treatment of type 2 diabetes and metabolic diseases. Though GPR120 was focused in recent years, there were rarely studies on pig. Here, the gene of porcine GPR120 (pGPR120) was first cloned and characterized, the expression profiles were also examined in five Chinese indigenous pig breeds and Landrace pig on 14 days of age. Bioinformatic analysis was done on pGPR120 through bioinformatics software on line. Real-time PCR analysis was used to investigate the tissues distribution of pGPR120. It has a seven trans-membrane structure and shared 96%, 96% and 95% of sequence identity with GPR120 of mouse, rat and human, respectively. No splice variants of GPR120 gene were found, but pGPR120 had a ubiquitously expression in tissues of different pig breeds, especially in heart, fat tissues and distal segments of gut. Chinese indigenous pig breeds had different pGPR120 expression patterns compared with the Landrace. Chinese indigenous pig breeds may be candidate model for researches on GPR120 to boost the discovery of regulation techniques for lipid metabolism.