INTRODUCTION

Acetyl-Coenzyme A Acyltransferase-1 () is a peroxisomal acyltransferase involved in fatty acid metabolism. Current evidence does not precisely reveal the effect of the gene on pig growth performance.

METHODS

The present study assessed the mRNA expression levels of the gene in the heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney of 6-month-old Xiangsu pigs and in the longissimus dorsi muscle at different growth stages (newborn, 6 months and 12 months of age) using RT-qPCR. The relationship between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of gene and growth traits in 6-month-old and 12-month-old Xiangsu pigs was investigated on 184 healthy Xiangsu pigs using Sanger sequencing.

RESULTS

The gene was expressed in heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, and longissimus dorsi muscle of 6-month-old pigs, with the highest level of expression in the liver. gene expression in the longissimus dorsi muscle decreased with age ( < 0.01). In addition, four SNPs were identified in the gene, including exon g.48810 A>G (rs343060194), intron g.51546 T>C (rs319197012), exon g.55035 T>C (rs333279910), and exon g.55088 C>T (rs322138947). Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium ( > 0.05) was found for the four SNPs, and linkage disequilibrium (LD) analysis revealed a strong LD between g.55035 T>C (rs333279910) and g.55088 C>T (rs322138947) ( = 1.000). Association analysis showed that g.48810 A>G (rs343060194), g.51546 T>C (rs319197012), g.55035 T>C (rs333279910), and g.55088 C>T (rs322138947) varied in body weight, body length, body height, abdominal circumference, leg and hip circumference and living backfat thickness between 6-month-old and 12-month-old Xiangsu pigs.

CONCLUSION

These findings strongly demonstrate that the gene can be exploited for marker-assisted selection to improve growth-related phenotypes in Xiangsu pigs and present new candidate genes for molecular pig breeding.