Cloning and expression of swine myostatin gene and its application in animal immunization trial

We have amplified swine myostatin (MSTN) gene by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and cloned it into pGEM-T Easy vector. The cloned swine MSTN gene consists of 1128 nucleotides, which has been submitted to GenBank (acquired registered code--AY448008). The cloned swine MSTN gene was successfully expressed in E. coli without the first 25 amino acids. Crude extraction of the expressed recombinant MSTN protein was used to immunize mice to investigate the effects on their bodyweights. We show here that the body weights of the immunized mice were higher than that of the controls, even though the difference was not significant. Surprisingly, the progenies of the immunized mice also were heavier than the controls. Especially at day 3, the average body weight of the immunized mice was 10.5% higher than that of the controls, which is significant (p < 0.05).