Abstract
Abstract. Meat quality is an important concern for the poultry industry. Domestic geese products obtained from free-range systems usually have rather tough meat, and it is necessary to select them to improve meat tenderness. The relation of the calpain 1 (CAPN1) gene with the post-mortem tenderness process of meat has been demonstrated in several species. Thus, the objective of the present study was to identify polymorphisms in this gene and to perform an association analysis between these polymorphisms and related economic traits in goose raised in the dehesa ecosystem. For the analysis, 50 geese of 3 different subpopulations (20 Embden Anser anser; 20 Toulouse Anser anser; 10 F1 cross) were studied. The experimental protocols were followed complying with principles of animal welfare. A novel SNP was found in the CAPN1 gene, g.68G → A. This polymorphism was statistically associated with different carcass and meat quality traits such as thigh muscle width (P = 0.020) and the b* 10-day meat colour parameter (P = 0.024) for the global goose population. The association of this gene with meat tenderness (Warner–Bratzler shear force) was confirmed in the case of female individuals of the Toulouse breed (P = 0.043). The results suggest the possibility of using molecular markers in CAPN1 gene as a potential tool for improving carcass and meat quality traits in goose breeding programmes.
Highlights
In the last few years there has been an increasing demand for the production of high-quality poultry meat, with the traditional products such as those obtained from free-range animals the most highly valued (Solé et al, 2016)
The sequences corresponding to the coding region of calpain 1 (CAPN1) gene (GenBank KU363622, KU363624, KU363625) have been identified for the first time in the domestic goose (Anser anser)
These findings suggested a biological implication of the CAPN1 gene in the metabolic pathway of post-mortem meat process in geese, as have been stated in other species before (Costello et al, 2007; Mazzucco et al, 2010; Shu et al, 2015)
Summary
In the last few years there has been an increasing demand for the production of high-quality poultry meat, with the traditional products such as those obtained from free-range animals the most highly valued (Solé et al, 2016). Geese are usually produced on specialized commercial farms, and the meat from intensively raised stocks has a soft texture, it is considered by many traditional consumers to have less flavour (FAO, 2004). Over the last 50 years, there has been a great advance in the development of hybrid breeds for intensive commercial poultry production (FAO, 2004), and the Embden and Toulouse breeds have been popular as stock for generating these hybrid crosses for meat production: for instance, the Embden × Toulouse cross offspring grow rapidly and have good fleshing qualities (Jacob and Pescatore, 2013)
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