Investigation of two candidate genes for meat quality traits in a quantitative trait locus region on SSC6: the porcine short heterodimer partner and heart fatty acid binding protein genes

Abstract

A highly significant quantitative trait locus (QTL) on pig chromosome 6, affecting intramuscular fat (IMF), has previously been detected by our group and others. Two genes of positional and biological interest, the small heterodimer partner (SHP; NR0B2) and the heart fatty acid binding protein (FABP3; H-FABP), were investigated for meat quality traits and IMF respectively. SHP was partially sequenced (GenBank: DQ002896 and DQ002897) and mapped to the QTL region on porcine chromosome 6, affecting IMF. The map shows no recombination between SHP and FABP3, which was previously mapped to the same QTL region. Twelve single nucleotide polymorphisms were detected in the sequenced region of SHP gene. Haplotype information was used to investigate association between genetic variation and different meat quality traits. SHP haplotype combinations were found to have significant effect on connective tissue. However, further studies are needed to evaluate this possible association more effectively. The FABP3 is involved in fatty acid transport and has been studied as a candidate gene for IMF by several research groups. In our study, FABP3 genotypes were confirmed to be significantly associated with IMF in pigs. The average content of IMF in our population was 1.6%, which may indicate that the FABP3 polymorphism explains as much as 30-35% of the variation in IMF in our pig cross-population.

Expression profiling analysis for genes related to meat quality and carcass traits during postnatal development of backfat in two pig breeds

“…FABP3, a member of the FABP family, plays an essential role in long-chain fatty acid uptake and metabolic homeostasis [26] . Arnyasi et al [27] reported that FABP3 polymorphisms might explain as much as 30%-35% of the variation in IMF in their pig cross-population. Li et al [28] found that FABP3 mRNA was induced during adipogenic differentiation of stromal-vascular cells derived from porcine adipose tissue and skeletal muscle.…”

Distribution of H-FABP and ACSL4 gene polymorphisms and their associations with intramuscular fat content and backfat thickness in different pig populations

“…The H-FABP polymorphisms have been studied in many pig populations, with significant associations being observed between these polymorphisms and the IMF content (Gerbens et al, 1997(Gerbens et al, , 2000Arnyasi et al, 2006;Lee et al, 2010;Li et al, 2010;Han et al, 2012). These studies indicated that the ordering of IMF H-FABP genotypes is HH > Hh > hh, DD < Dd < dd, and AA < Aa < aa, and that porcine meat quality might be improved by increasing the frequency of genotype aa-dd-HH in pig breeds (Pang et al, 2006).…”

Technological and sensory pork quality in relation to muscle and drip loss protein profiles

“…Significant associations between genetic variation at the A-FABP and H-FABP gene loci (FABP4 and FABP3) and intramuscular fat content (IMF) have been identified [55,56]. Other studies, however, do not show clear associations between the genetic variance of FABP3 and IMF [57][58][59][60].…”