Abstract
BackgroundCarcass traits are crucial characteristics of broilers. However, the underlying genetic mechanisms are not well understood. In the current study, significant loci and major-effect candidate genes affecting nine carcass traits related to meat production were analyzed in 873 purebred broilers using an imputation-based genome-wide association study.ResultsThe heritability estimates of nine carcass traits, including carcass weight, thigh muscle weight, and thigh muscle percentage, were moderate to high and ranged from 0.21 to 0.39. Twelve genome-wide significant SNPs and 118 suggestively significant SNPs of 546,656 autosomal variants were associated with carcass traits. All SNPs for six weight traits (body weight at 42 days of age, carcass weight, eviscerated weight, whole thigh weight, thigh weight, and thigh muscle weight) were clustered around the 24.08 Kb region (GGA24: 5.73–5.75 Mb) and contained only one candidate gene (DRD2). The most significant SNP, rs15226023, accounted for 4.85–7.71% of the estimated genetic variance of the six weight traits. The remaining SNPs for carcass composition traits (whole thigh percentage and thigh percentage) were clustered around the 42.52 Kb region (GGA3: 53.03–53.08 Mb) and contained only one candidate gene (ADGRG6). The most significant SNP in this region, rs13571431, accounted for 11.89–13.56% of the estimated genetic variance of two carcass composition traits. Some degree of genetic differentiation in ADGRG6 between large and small breeds was observed.ConclusionWe identified one 24.08 Kb region for weight traits and one 42.52 Kb region for thigh-related carcass traits. DRD2 was the major-effect candidate gene for weight traits, and ADGRG6 was the major-effect candidate gene for carcass composition traits. Our results supply essential information for causative mutation identification of carcass traits in broilers.
Highlights
For global meat consumption, chicken meat is the second largest and provide almost 1/3 of meat resource1
The blood samples were supplied by the Aquatic Animal Husbandry Association of Yulin City in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region
The Manhattan and Q-Q plots of the univariate genome−wide association study (GWAS) results are presented in Figure 2A and Table 2
Summary
Chicken meat is the second largest and provide almost 1/3 of meat resource. Thigh development and meat production are closely related to the efficiency of the broiler industry. These traits have moderate to high heritability and are controlled by multiple genes (Claire D’Andre et al, 2013; Flisar et al, 2014). Multiple haplotypes at the distal end of chromosome 1 were identified as a major-effect QTL for chicken growth traits (Wang et al, 2020). Significant loci and major-effect candidate genes affecting nine carcass traits related to meat production were analyzed in 873 purebred broilers using an imputation-based genomewide association study
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