Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2024, Vol. 55 ›› Issue (4): 1536-1550.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2024.04.018

• ANIMAL GENETICS AND BREEDING • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Biological Characterization of Chicken FGF6 Gene and Association of Its Polymorphisms with Economic Traits

CAO Yuzhu1, XING Yuxin1, MA Chenglin1, GUAN Hongbo1, JIA Qihui1, KANG Xiangtao1,2,3, TIAN Yadong1,2,3, LI Zhuanjian1,2,3, LIU Xiaojun1,2,3*, LI Hong1,2,3*   

  1. 1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450046, China;
    2. International Joint Research Laboratory for Poultry Breeding of Henan, Zhengzhou 450046, China;
    3. Henan Key Laboratory for Innovation and Utilization of Chicken Germplasm Resources, Zhengzhou 450046, China
  • Received:2023-10-13 Online:2024-04-23 Published:2024-04-26

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to explore the biological characteristics of chicken fibroblast growth factor 6 (FGF6) gene, excavate the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) site located in FGF6 gene and analyze its correlation with chicken economic traits, and provide reference for the subsequent research on the effect of FGF6 gene on growth traits in chickens. Bioinformatics analysis was performed for FGF6 protein sequences. Based on the GBS data and phenotypic data of 768 individuals from Gushi-Anka chicken F2 resource population, the SNP in the FGF6 gene including the promoter 2 kb region were screened, linkage disequilibrium and association analysis were conducted to explore the correlation of SNP and haplotype of FGF6 gene with economic traits of chickens. The results showed that the amino acid sequence of chicken FGF6 was 91.26% homologous to turkey; phylogenetic analysis showed that chicken was the most closely related to turkey, followed by green sea turtle, and had the greatest genetic distance from zebrafish. Conservative analysis showed that FGF6 was highly conservative among different species. Chicken FGF6 was a hydrophilic protein with one transmembrane region, and mainly localized in the cytoplasm. Its secondary and tertiary structures were consistent. Chicken FGF6 protein was modified by 22 phosphorylation sites and 1 N-glycosylation site, and potentially interacted with 5 proteins of its receptor family, FGFR1-4 and EGF. Six SNPs sites were screened in the promoter region of chicken FGF6, all of which were located in intron 1. Polymorphism analysis showed that the 6 SNPs sites had high polymorphic, and 5 of them were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and strongly interlinked (D′=1, r2=1). The results of association analysis showed that rs73399071 was significantly correlated with 17 growth traits including body weight (BW), shank length (SL), shank girth (SG), and body slanting length (BSL), etc. at different stages of F2 resource population (P < 0.05), and 10 carcass traits such as evisceration weight (EW), semi-evisceration weight (SEW), carcass weight (CW), and breast muscle weight (BMW), etc. (P < 0.05). The rs73399071 was not significantly correlated with meat quality traits (P>0.05), and significantly correlated with high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and choline esterase (ChE) (P < 0.05). The phenotype average values of most traits in CC genotype individuals were higher than those of GG genotype individuals. Haplotype combination analysis showed that body weights of individuals carrying with CCTTCCTTCC combinations at different stages were higher than those of other haplotype combinations. The results of this study provide a theoretical reference for further exploring the function of FGF6 gene in chickens. Five SNP sites in FGF6 gene were found to be significantly associated with body weight, body size, carcass traits and blood biochemical indexes of Gushi-Anka chicken F2 resource population, providing candidate molecular markers for chicken breeding and a new idea for marker assisted selection in chicken.

Key words: chicken, FGF6 gene, bioinformatics analysis, linkage disequilibrium analysis, haplotype, economic traits, association analysis

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