Minipigs as models in drug discovery

Figures & data

Table 1. Breeds of minipigs used as animal models for drug evaluation in various countries.

Country/continents	Breeds	Details
USA	Hanford	Developed by crossing Palouse gilts with Pittman–Moore boar and bred for smaller size
	Yucatan micro/ Yucatan mini	Native to the tropics and developed from the offspring of pigs from the Yucatan Peninsula
	Sinclair/Minnesota/Hormel	Small in size and known to have a substantial incidence of melanoma
	Göttingen	Developed by crossbreeding the Minnesota minipig, Vietnamese potbelly pig, and German Landrace, microbiologically well-defined
	Ossabaw	Descended from Canary Island swine; propensity to obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, etc.
	Panepinto
	Pitmann–Morre
Europe	Göttingen	As mentioned above
	Czech miniature
	Mini–Lew
	Munich
	Berlin
Japan	CLAWN	Developed by mating F1 progeny of Göttingen minipigs with Ohmini miniature swine, inbred
	Ohmini	Developed from small pigs of Manchuria, inbred
	Göttingen	As mentioned above
China	Banna	Inbred with 18 sublines.
	Bama	Genetically stable, inbred strain
	Wuzhishan	Native Chinese inbred miniature breed
Czech Republic	Brno Göttingen	Göttingen substrain, well studied in toxicological research

Figure 1. Advantages and disadvantages of various animal models in biomedical research. Metabolism has not been mentioned in the upper panel since swine metabolism is very similar to humans and it is a distinct advantage over rodents.