Expression data from post mortem porcine skeletal muscle

We set up a pilot study using Affymetrix Gene Chip® Porcine Genome Arrays to evaluate the impact of time lags from death on gene expression profiling of porcine skeletal muscle at four post mortem time points (up to 24 hrs) during the routine processing of fresh tights Post mortem skeletal muscle samples were obtained from three commercial hybrid pigs of female sex (of about 160 kg each) raised in the same commercial farm and slaughtered under normal conditions at the same abattoir within 1 minute of each other after stunning by CO2 (concentration 87%) using a dip lift system (Butina, Denmark). A portion of semimembranosus muscle (3-5 g) was sampled from the left legs at 20 minutes (T0) after death following the normal operation of the abattoir. Other samples were collected from the same muscle at the same position after 2 (T1), 6 (T2) and 24 (T3) hrs post mortem in the same abattoir following the cold chain at the abattoir until 4 °C. After sampling, tissues were snap frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80 °C till RNA extraction.