Associations of Polymorphisms in Four Candidate Genes with Carcass and/or Meat-Quality Traits in Two Meat-Type Chicken Lines

The associations between polymorphisms of five genes, calpain 1 ( CAPN1 ), follicle stimulating hormone beta (FSHB), follicle stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR), peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARG), and retinol binding protein 7 (RBP7), and live weight, carcass composition, and meat-quality traits were estimated from two meat-type chickens lines (n=311). Except for the variants of the FSHR gene, 11 SNPs of the other four genes and two diplotypes of PPARG were associated with one or more traits excluding shear factor (SF). SNP C31566680T of the CAPN1 gene was significantly associated with live weight (LW) carcass traits. The SNP A4580859C of FSHB gene was significantly associated with breast muscle weight (BrW) and LW. One of the PPARG SNPs, C5070948T, was associated with intramuscular fat content in breast (IMF br ). Diplotype P1 of the PPARG gene was significantly associated with LW and all carcass traits. P3 were significantly associated with abdominal fat weight (AbFW). SNPs in RBP7 were only associated with BrW. These results indicate that the four genes were associated with these traits and have promise as genetic markers for future marker-assisted selection. Supplementary materials for this paper are available online.