Wuzhishan pig

The Wuzhishan pig is a breed of inbred miniature pig created by Professor Feng Shutang intended to be used as a model organism for medical research.

Physical description
A Wuzhishan pig’s length ranges from 50 to 70 cm long (19.7-27.5 inches), with adults typically weighing between 30 and 35 kilograms (66.1-77.2 pounds). They have a distinctive two-toned body which is black dorsally and pink ventrally.

The Wuzhishan pig is mainly used to study the human circulatory system due to the similarities between pig and human organs.

Genetic research
The full genome sequence and analysis were completed by BGI Group in 2012; the breed was successfully identified in early 2013. The intellectual property rights for the breed are protected by both Chinese and American patents.

On May 18 2015, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences announced that its Institute of Animal Science agreed to transfer all breeding research to Beijing Grand Life Science & Technology Co., Ltd., which had the sole rights to breed and sell Wuzhishan pigs for commercial purposes.

Multiple Chinese research institutions, medical schools, hospitals, and enterprises conduct research around Wuzhishan pigs to establish their suitability as research models. Research on future life science and medical applications of the pigs also began to take place, to which the initial results include the injection of embryonic germ cells into blastocysts, along with islet isolation and purification.

On June 23, 2017, the Academy of Military Medical Sciences and Grand Life Science declared that the PERV-pol gene-deficient Wuzhishan pig had been identified and verified by systematic virology methods and whole genome sequencing. Grand Life had succeeded in reproducing F0/F1 PERV-noninfectious Wuzhishan pigs that then became available for advanced biomedical research purposes, including a series of studies under the 2017-2020 National Primary Research Programs on bio-material development and tissue-organ repair.