Identification of quantitative trait loci affecting shank length, body weight and carcass weight from the Japanese cockfighting chicken breed, Oh-Shamo (Japanese Large Game)

Abstract

We performed a quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis to map QTLs controlling shank length, body weight, and carcass weight in a resource family of 245 F₂ birds developed from a cross of the large-sized, native, Japanese cockfighting breed, Oh-Shamo (Japanese Large Game), and the White Leghorn breed of chickens. Interval mapping revealed three significant QTLs for shank length on chromosomes 1, 4 and 24 at the experiment-wise 5% level, and a suggestive shank length QTL on chromosome 27 at the experiment-wise 10% level. For body weight two QTLs, one significant and the other suggestive, were identified on chromosomes 4 and 24, respectively. As expected, QTLs for carcass weight, which was highly correlated with body weight (r = 0.95), were detected at the same chromosomal locations as the detected body weight QTLs. Interestingly, the chromosomal locations containing these body weight and carcass weight QTLs coincided with those of two of the four shank length QTLs detected. No QTL with an epistatic interaction effect was discovered for any trait. The total contribution of all detected QTLs to genetic variance was 98.4%, 27.0% and 25.9% for shank length, body weight and carcass weight, respectively, indicating that most shank length QTLs have been identified but many body weight and carcass weight QTLs have been overlooked by the present analysis because of a low coverage rate of the 88 microsatellite markers used here (approximately 46% of the whole genome).

A genome-wide association study of growth trait-related single nucleotide polymorphisms in Chinese Yancheng chickens

“…Remarkable advances in the study of growth traits have been achieved, and many relative genes and quantitative trait loci (QTLs) have been discovered (Sewalem et al, 2002;Carlborg et al, 2004;Jacobsson et al, 2005;Tsudzuki et al, 2007;Moura et al, 2009;Wahlberg et al, 2009). More than 1500 QTLs, covering most of the chicken genome, are associated with growth traits (Hu et al, 2010).…”

Quantitative Trait Loci Mapping for External Egg Traits in F₂ Chickens

“…The Oh- Shamo is one of the most famous Japanese indigenous chicken breeds and it is kept for cock fighting (Tsudzuki, 2003). In contrast, the White Leghorn which originated from Italy has been selected intensely for egg production.…”

Comparative Study on Various Growth Performances of Korean Oge and White Leghorn Chickens

“…Similarly, the overall length of shank was measured longer in WL males at 1 week and 10 weeks, WL females at 2 weeks, KO females at 5 weeks, and KO males at 24 weeks. Different QTL which located on chicken chromosomes 1, 4 and 24 were responsible for shank growth at different ages (Tsudzuki et al, 2007;Gao et al, 2010).…”

“…It was tested for environ-mental stress effect for their body weight growth (Gross and Siegel, 1980). WL chickens are also very good resource for genetic studies such as quantitative trait locus (QTL) (Tsudzuki et al, 2007;Ankra-Badu et al, 2010;Podisi et al, 2011), genetic differentiation (Tadano et al, 2011), and gene polymorphism (Cao et al, 2007).…”