Transcriptome architecture across tissues in the pig

Artificial selection has resulted in animal breeds with extreme phenotypes. As an organism is made up of many different tissues and organs, each with its own genetic programme, it is pertinent to ask what are the relative contributions of breed or sex when assessed across tissues. Are all tissues equally affected by breed or sex? How relevant is tissue in terms of total transcriptome variability? Keywords: breeds, sex and tissues comparison In order to gain insight on these issues, we have microarrayed 16 different tissues hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays from four animals of the extreme pig breeds Large White and Iberian, two males and two females