MicroRNAs-1614-3p gene seed region polymorphisms and association analysis with chicken production traits

In the present study, a total of 860 chickens from a Gushi-Anka F2 resource population were used to evaluate the genetic effect of the gga-miR-1614-3p gene. A novel, silent, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP, +5 C>T) was detected in the gga-miR-1614-3p gene seed region through AvaII polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) and PCR products sequencing methods. Associations between the SNP and chicken growth, meat quality and carcass traits were performed by association analysis. The results showed that the SNP was significantly associated with breast muscle shear force and leg muscle water loss rate, wing weight, liver weight and heart weight (p<0.05), and highly significantly associated with the weight of the abdominal fat (p<0.01). The secondary structure of gga-miR-1614 and the free energy were altered due to the variation predicted by the M-fold program.