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Updated: Jun 18, 2026

Grafting of Beads into Developing Chicken Embryo Limbs to Identify Signal Transduction Pathways Affecting Gene Expression
Published on: January 17, 2016
Integrating genomics and transcriptomics to dissect genetic variants associated with feed efficiency and growth
Yapeng Zhang1, Yin Zhang2, Na Luo3
1State Key Laboratory of Animal Biotech Breeding, Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Beijing 100193, China; National Nanfan Research Institute (Sanya), Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Sanya 572024, China.
Abstract:
Feed efficiency (FE) and growth traits are key determinants of profitability in the chicken industry. Using genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in 432 Wenchang chickens, we identified 28 significant and 1,063 suggestive genes associated with 6 FE and growth traits. We conducted colocalization analyses between GWAS loci and cis-eQTLs and detected 4 GWAS loci with 4 unique eGenes including LAP3, PDS5A, KLHL5 and KLB. We also examined the cis-eQTL analysis results of ChickenGTEx and integrated them with the results of our GWAS, which detected two SNPs (4_75971034, 4_75971177) regulating LAP3. Moreover, two significant InDels (4_75971045, 4_75971140) are identified in the LAP3 gene using GWAS, three genotypes significantly affecting the expression levels of this gene in transcriptomic analyses of 114 liver tissues, and highly linked to two SNPs, so these InDels may also affect LAP3. Our findings reveal key genetic variants and genes, contributing to a deeper elucidation of the molecular mechanisms that drive FE and growth traits in chickens.
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