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Updated: Oct 18, 2025

Segmentation and Measurement of Fat Volumes in Murine Obesity Models Using X-ray Computed Tomography
Published on: April 4, 2012
The genome of the naturally evolved obesity-prone Ossabaw miniature pig
Yaolei Zhang1,2,3,4, Guangyi Fan2,3,4, Xin Liu2,3,4
1Translational Immunology Group, Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark.
Abstract:
The feral pigs of Ossabaw Island (USA) have an outstanding propensity to obesity and develop complete metabolic syndrome (MetS) upon prolonged high energy dieting. We now report the first high quality genome of the Ossabaw pig with Contig N50 of ∼6.03 Mb, significantly higher than most other published pig genomes. Genomic comparison to Duroc reveals that variations including SNPs, INDELs and one ∼2 Mb inversion identified in Ossabaw pig may be related to its "thrifty" phenotype. Finally, an important positively selected gene (PSG) was found to be LEPR (leptin receptor) containing two positively selected sites which may lead to pseudogenization of this gene with possible significant effects on obesity and inflammation development. This work provides the first complete mapping of a genome representing a naturally 'feast and famine' evolved phenotype of MetS, serving as a blueprint to guide the search for new targets and new biomarkers for obesity comorbidities.
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