Article

Genome-wide association study for the free amino acid and nucleotide components of breast meat in an F2 crossbred chicken population

Minjun Kim1, Eunjin Cho2, Jean Munyaneza1, Thisarani Ediriweera2, Jihye Cha3, Daehyeok Jin4, Sunghyun Cho5, Jun Heon Lee1,2,*
Author Information & Copyright
1Division of Animal and Dairy Science, Chungnam National University, Deajeon 34134, Korea.
2Department of Bio-AI Convergence, Chungnam National University, Deajeon 34134, Korea.
3Animal Genome & Bioinformatics, National Institute of Animal Science, Rural Development Administration, Wanju 55365, Korea.
4Animal Genetic Resources Research Center, National Institute of Animal Science, Rural Development Administration, Hamyang 50000, Korea.
5Research and Development Center, Insilicogen Inc., Yongin 19654, Korea.
*Corresponding Author: Jun Heon Lee, Division of Animal and Dairy Science, Chungnam National University, Deajeon 34134, Korea, Republic of. Department of Bio-AI Convergence, Chungnam National University, Deajeon 34134, Korea, Republic of. Phone: +82-42-821-7031. E-mail: junheon@cnu.ac.kr.

© Copyright 2022 Korean Society of Animal Science and Technology. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Flavor is an important sensory trait of chicken meat. The free amino acid (FAA) and nucleotide (NT) components of meat are major factors affecting meat flavor during the cooking process. As a genetic approach to improve meat flavor, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify the potential candidate genes related to the FAA and NT components of chicken breast meat. Measurements of FAA and NT components were recorded at the age of 10 weeks from 764 and 767 birds, respectively, using a White leghorn and Yeonsan ogye crossbred F<sub>2</sub> chicken population. For genotyping, we used 60K Illumina single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chips. We found a total of nine significant SNPs for five FAA traits (arginine, glycine, lysine, threonine content, and the essential FAAs and one NT trait (inosine content), and six significant genomic regions were identified, including three regions shared among the essential FAAs, arginine, and inosine content traits. A list of potential candidate genes in significant genomic regions was detected, including the <italic>KCNRG</italic>, <italic>KCNIP4</italic>, <italic>HOXA3</italic>, <italic>THSD7B</italic>, and <italic>MMUT</italic> genes. The essential FAAs had significant gene regions the same as arginine. The genes related to arginine content were involved in nitric oxide metabolism, while the inosine content was possibly affected by insulin activity. Moreover, the threonine content could be related to methylmalonyl-CoA mutase. The genes and SNPs identified in this study might be useful markers in chicken selection and breeding for chicken meat flavor.

Keywords: Chicken; Breast meat; Free amino acids; Nucleotides; GWAS