The AIRN lncRNA is imprinted and paternally expressed in pigs.

Genomic imprinting is important for the development of mammals and long non-coding RNAs are often involved in the imprinting process. In mice, Airn encodes a long non-coding RNA that is imprinted, and therefore, transcribed only from the paternal allele. This paternal transcription of Airn interferes with the adjacent Igf2r promoter, leading to maternal expression of Igf2r. In pigs, the orthologous AIRN has not been identified as well as its imprinting. In the current study, we report porcine AIRN and allelic expression of both AIRN and IGF2R using our parthenogenetic embryo models and various normal pig tissues.