Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2025, Vol. 56 ›› Issue (11): 5352-5366.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2025.11.002

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Progress of Candidate Genes for Carcass Appearance and Meat Quality Traits in Broiler Chickens

CHENG Haotong(), ZHANG Lin, ZHAO Liang, GAO Feng, XING Tong*()   

  1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
  • Received:2025-04-15 Online:2025-11-23 Published:2025-11-27
  • Contact: XING Tong E-mail:chenghaotong2216@163.com;xingtong@njau.edu.cn

Abstract:

Genetic improvement of carcass appearance and meat quality traits in broilers is pivotal for enhancing production efficiency and meeting market demands. With the rapid expansion of chilled chicken markets and increasing consumer emphasis on product quality, traits such as carcass appearance (eg., skin color, pore density, body size) and meat quality (e.g., meat color, tenderness, intramuscular fat) have become critical determinants of commercial competitiveness. This review systematically summarizes the application of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in poultry breeding, highlighting the candidate genes identified through GWAS, transcriptomics, and multi-omics approaches. Key genes include LCORL and LDB2 (affecting body size), BCO2 and TYR (affecting skin pigmentation), Wnt3A (affecting pore development), ATP5L and COL1A2 (affecting meat color), FASN and PLA2G4F (affecting intramuscular fat deposition), as well as CAPN1 and CAST (affecting tenderness). By synthesizing current findings, this paper provides a theoretical foundation for marker-assisted breeding and proposes future research directions in functional genomics and precision breeding.

Key words: broiler, carcass appearance, meat quality traits, candidate gene, molecular breeding

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