%0 Journal Article
%T Association of a single nucleotide polymorphism in titin gene with marbling in Japanese Black beef cattle
%A Takahisa Yamada
%A Seiki Sasaki
%A Shin Sukegawa
%A Sachiyo Yoshioka
%A Youichi Takahagi
%A Mitsuo Morita
%A Hiroshi Murakami
%A Fumiki Morimatsu
%A Tatsuo Fujita
%A Takeshi Miyake
%A Yoshiyuki Sasaki
%J BMC Research Notes
%D 2009
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1756-0500-2-78
%X A SNP in the promoter region of TTN, referred to as g.231054C>T, was the only difference detected between high- and low-marbled steer groups. The SNP was associated with marbling in 3 experiments using 101 sires (P = 0.004), 848 paternal half-sib progeny steers from 5 sires heterozygous for the g.231054C>T (P = 0.046), and 820 paternal half-sib progeny steers from 3 sires homozygous for C allele at the g.231054C>T (P = 0.051), in Japanese Black beef cattle. The effect of genotypes of the SNP on subcutaneous fat thickness was not statistically significant (P > 0.05).These findings suggest that in addition to the EDG1 SNPs, the TTN SNP polymorphism is associated with marbling and may be useful for effective marker-assisted selection to increase the levels of marbling in Japanese Black beef cattle. Further replicate studies will be needed to confirm the allelic association observed here, and to expand the results to evaluate all possible genotypic combinations of alleles.Marbling has an important effect on the economics of beef production [1-4]. Thus, it is greatly interesting to obtain better knowledge on the molecular architecture of marbling and to generate new opportunities for more effective marker-assisted selection.The endothelial differentiation, sphingolipid G-protein-coupled receptor, 1 (EDG1) gene, which is involved in blood vessel formation [5], exhibited higher expression levels in high-marbled steer group than in low-marbled steer group in musculus longissimus muscle across all ages of the test period [6,7]. We have recently showed that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the EDG1 were associated with marbling in Japanese Black beef cattle [8].From the result of our previous differential-display PCR (ddPCR) analysis in musculus longissimus muscle [6], the titin (TTN) gene exhibited higher expression levels in low-marbled steer group than in high-marbled steer group in the late stage of the test period. Since TTN is known to be involved in myofibrill
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/2/78