Effects of housing environment, dominance status, and parity on the PBMC transcriptome of sows during gestation and lactation

Blood immune cells transcriptome can be used as a tool to investigate molecular mechanisms or identify biomarkers of several physiological processes. Factors such as reproductive status, age, or physical and mental states resulting from social and non-social environmental aspects can influence the activation and phenotype of immune cells. Here we describe the gene expression levels in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of multiparous sows of various parity ranks housed during gestation in a stable social group either in a conventional environment on a slatted concrete floor (C) or in an enriched environment with deep straw litter and a bigger space allowance (E). Next-generation sequencing was performed in PBMCs of 28 multiparous sows at 98 days of gestation (G98) and 11 days of lactation (L11). The sows were classified according to different parameters, including the housing environment (C or E), parity rank (high parity sows - HP: 4th gestation or higher and low parity sows - LP: 2nd and 3rd gestation), and dominance status (dominant sows - Dom and subordinate sows - Sub). The experiment was carried out in two replicates (R1 and R2).