Application of genomic technologies to the improvement of meat quality of farm animals.

Meat quality is of economic importance in farm animals. It is controlled by multigenes and the environment. During the past few decades, advances in molecular genetics have led to the identification of genes, or markers associated with genes, that affect meat quality. Work on sequencing farm animal genomes will help us to understand how genes function in various organisms and might be applied in the field to study the molecular control of meat quality. Candidate gene and genome scans are two main strategies to identify loci associated with the trait of meat quality. Several genes that influence meat quality have already been, or are close to being, identified. Some of them have been applied to the breeding of farm animals by marker-assisted selection. This will accelerate cumulative and permanent genetic improvement of herds.