Twumasi Grace, Wang Huazhen, Xi Yang, Qi Jingjing, Li Liang, Bai Lili, Liu Hehe
State Key Laboratory of Swine and Poultry Breeding Industry, College of Animal Science and Technology, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China.
Farm Animal Genetic Resources Exploration and Innovation, Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China.
Animals (Basel). 2023 Dec 26;14(1):85. doi: 10.3390/ani14010085.
In modern advanced genetics and breeding programs, the study of genes related to pigmentation in ducks is gaining much attention and popularity. Genes and DNA mutation cause variations in the plumage color traits of ducks. Therefore, discovering related genes responsible for different color traits and pigment patterns on each side of the single feathers in Chinese ducks is important for genetic studies. In this study, we collected feather images from 340 ducks and transported them into Image Pro Plus (IPP) 6.0 software to quantify the melanin content in the feathers. Thereafter, a genome-wide association study was conducted to reveal the genes responsible for variations in the feather color trait. The results from this study revealed that the pigmented region was larger in the male ducks as compared to the female ducks. In addition, the pigmented region was larger on the right side of the feather vane than on the left side in both dorsal and ventral feathers, and a positive correlation was observed among the feather color traits. Further, among the annotated genes, , , , and were identified to play important roles in the variation in pigmented regions of the various feathers. This study also revealed that five candidate genes, including , , , , and , were associated with the color pigment on the dorsal feathers of the ducks. Genes such as , , , and reportedly play important roles in ventral feather color traits. This study revealed that genes such as , DOCK1, , and were associated with different pigmentation patterns, thereby providing new insights into the genetic mechanisms of single-feather pigmentation patterns in ducks.
在现代先进的遗传学和育种计划中，鸭色素沉着相关基因的研究备受关注且日益流行。基因和DNA突变导致鸭羽毛颜色特征的变化。因此，在中国鸭中发现负责不同颜色特征和单根羽毛两侧色素模式的相关基因对遗传学研究具有重要意义。在本研究中，我们收集了340只鸭的羽毛图像，并将其导入Image Pro Plus（IPP）6.0软件中以量化羽毛中的黑色素含量。此后，进行了全基因组关联研究以揭示负责羽毛颜色特征变化的基因。本研究结果表明，雄鸭的色素沉着区域比雌鸭大。此外，在背羽和腹羽中，羽片右侧的色素沉着区域比左侧大，并且在羽毛颜色特征之间观察到正相关。此外,在注释基因中，发现 、 、 和 在各种羽毛色素沉着区域的变化中起重要作用。本研究还表明，包括 、 、 、 和 在内的五个候选基因与鸭背羽上的色素有关。据报道， 、 、 和 等基因在腹羽颜色特征中起重要作用。本研究表明， 、DOCK1、 和 等基因与不同的色素沉着模式有关，从而为鸭单根羽毛色素沉着模式的遗传机制提供了新的见解。
