Association between G316A growth hormone polymorphism and economic traits in pigs

The association between G316A growth hormone polymorphism and quantitative traits was investigated in an F2 population of pigs. Association analyses were performed using a statistical model that included genotype, sex, batch and sex by genotype interaction as fixed effects and sire as random effect. The polymorphism was associated with the number of right teats (p = 0.03), heart weight (p = 0.04), lung weight (p = 0.05), carcass length determined by the Brazilian carcass classification method (p = 0.04), picnic shoulder weight (p = 0.07), jowl weight (p = 0.01), pH 24 h after slaughtering (p = 0.03) and drip loss (p = 0.01). Interaction between genotype and sex was observed for six performance traits. The additive effect was significant (p < 0.10) for heart weight, jowl weight and pH 24 h after slaughtering. The effect of dominance was significant (p < 0.05) for number of right teats, heart weight, carcass length, picnic shoulder weight and pH 24 h after slaughtering. This study shows that the growth hormone gene is a potential candidate for investigating the phenotypic variation of quantitative traits in pigs, and suggests its possible application in breeding programs

Associations of MYF5 gene polymorphisms with meat quality traits in different domestic pig (Sus scrofa) populations

The MYF5 gene is first inducibly expressed in muscle cell during embryonic muscle development and plays an important role in regulating the differentiation of skeletal muscle precursors. In this study we used PCR-RFLP to investigate two pig (Sus scrofa) populations (n = 302) for two MYF5 gene polymorphisms, a previously unreported novel Met-Leu shift single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) MYF5/Hsp92II located on exon 1 and the previously identified intron 1 MYF5/HinfI SNP. Haplotype and association analysis showed that haplotypes of the two SNPs were significantly associated with drip loss rate (DLR, p < 0.05), water holding capacity (WHC, p < 0.05), biceps femoris meat color value (MCV2, p < 0.05), biceps femoris marbling score (MM2, p < 0.01), longissimus dorsi intramuscular fat percentage (IMF, p < 0.01) and longissimus dorsi Water moisture content (WM, p < 0.01) in the population 2. However, further studies are needed to confirm these preliminary results