[Correlation analysis between single nucleotide polymorphism of the leptin receptor intron 8 and fatness traits in...

Leptin receptor plays an important role in leptin functioning signal transduction and it may have direct effects on the deposition of adipose tissues and the body weight, the leptin receptor (OBR) gene, therefore, can be considered as a candidate gene in the study of fat deposition of the chicken. The function of OBR gene has been intensively studied in mammals, but study of OBR gene in the chicken is still rare. In this paper, the NEAU divergent selection broiler lines for abdominal fat were used. Body weight and fatness traits were measured in the sixth generation broiler population of the two lines at 7 week of age. Two pairs of primers for intron 8 of OBR gene were designed according to the database of chicken genomic sequence (Accession No. AF222783). The SNP was detected by DNA sequencing, and PCR-SSCP method was then developed to screen the population. The correlation analysis between the polymorphisms of the intron 8 of OBR gene and growth and fatness traits in the population was carried out using the appropriate statistical model. Two SNPs were found in the population. Those were T500C and G659A. The least square analysis showed that BB genotype birds had significant higher (P < 0.05) abdominal fat weight and percentage of abdominal fat than AA and AB genotype birds, and AA genotype birds had significant lower (P < 0.05) weights of livers than AB and BB genotype birds at the same time. From these results we can putatively drew the conclusion that OBR gene may be a major gene to affect the fatness traits or linked to the major gene, and the two polymorphisms found in OBR gene intron 8 region could be used to select the chicken for low abdominal fat in molecular marker-assisted selection programs.