Fornari Marcelo B, Zanella Ricardo, Ibelli Adriana Mg, Fernandes Lana T, Cantão Maurício E, Thomaz-Soccol Vanete, Ledur Mônica C, Peixoto Jane O
Departamento de Engenharia de Bioprocessos e Biotecnologia, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, PR Brazil.
Laboratório de Genética e Melhoramento Animal, Embrapa Suínos e Aves, BR 153, km 110, Distrito de Tamanduá, Caixa Postal 21, 89700-000 Concórdia, SC Brazil.
Springerplus. 2014 Nov 20;3:682. doi: 10.1186/2193-1801-3-682. eCollection 2014.
Improvements on growth and carcass traits in the poultry industry have been achieved by intense selection for heavier chickens at early ages. This faster growth has caused serious problems due to insufficient skeletal structure development needed to support the musculature of modern broilers. The osteoprotegerin gene (OPG), located on GGA2, is an important regulator of bone metabolism and reabsorption, being suggestive as a possible functional candidate gene associated with bone integrity in chickens. This study reports associations of a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the OPG gene with production traits in a parental broiler line. Different phenotypic groups were evaluated: performance, carcass and skeletal traits. SNPs were identified within the OPG gene and the most informative SNP g.9144C > G was chosen for association analyses. Chickens (n = 1230) were genotyped using PCR-RFLP. The association was carried out with QxPaK v4.0 software using a mixed model including sex, hatch and SNP as fixed effects, and the infinitesimal and residual as random effects. The OPG SNP was associated with important traits as body weight at 21 days, weights of tibia and drumstick skin, leg muscle yield, and tibia breaking strength (P < 0.05). Associations were explained by the additive effect of the SNP and the additive effect within sex. This SNP could be considered a potential marker to improve bone resistance in chickens; however, caution should be taken because of its negative effect in other important traits evaluated in this study. Furthermore, these findings suggest a possible involvement of the OPG gene in fat deposition in poultry.
通过对幼龄鸡体重更重的高强度选择，家禽业在生长和胴体性状方面取得了改善。由于现代肉鸡肌肉组织的骨骼结构发育不足，这种更快的生长速度引发了严重问题。骨保护素基因（OPG）位于鸡的2号染色体（GGA2）上，是骨代谢和重吸收的重要调节因子，被认为是与鸡骨骼完整性相关的一个可能的功能候选基因。本研究报告了OPG基因中的一个单核苷酸多态性（SNP）与一个亲本肉鸡品系生产性状的关联。评估了不同的表型组：生产性能、胴体和骨骼性状。在OPG基因内鉴定出SNP，并选择信息最丰富的SNP g.9144C＞G进行关联分析。使用聚合酶链反应-限制性片段长度多态性（PCR-RFLP）对1230只鸡进行基因分型。使用QxPaK v4.0软件，采用混合模型进行关联分析，该模型包括性别、孵化批次和SNP作为固定效应，以及微效多基因和残差作为随机效应。OPG SNP与21日龄体重、胫骨和鸡腿皮肤重量、腿部肌肉产量以及胫骨断裂强度等重要性状相关（P＜0.05）。这些关联可以通过SNP的加性效应和性别内的加性效应来解释。这个SNP可被视为提高鸡骨骼抗性的一个潜在标记；然而，由于其对本研究中评估的其他重要性状有负面影响，所以应谨慎使用。此外，这些发现表明OPG基因可能参与了家禽的脂肪沉积。
