Analysis of the porcine APOA2 gene expression in liver,polymorphism identification and association with fatty acid composition traits |
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Authors: | M Ballester M Revilla A Puig‐Oliveras J A P Marchesi A Castelló J Corominas A I Fernández J M Folch |
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Institution: | 1. Departament de Ciència Animal i dels Aliments, Facultat de Veterinària, Campus UAB, Bellaterra, 08193, Barcelona, Spain;2. Plant and Animal Genomics, Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica (Consorci CSIC‐IRTA‐UAB‐UB), Edifici CRAG, Campus UAB, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain;3. IRTA, Genètica i Millora Animal, Torre Marimon, Caldes de Montbui, Spain;4. Departamento de Genética Animal, Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA), Madrid, Spain |
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Abstract: | APOA2 is a protein implicated in triglyceride, fatty acid and glucose metabolism. In pigs, the APOA2 gene is located on pig chromosome 4 (SSC4) in a QTL region affecting fatty acid composition, fatness and growth traits. In this study, we evaluated APOA2 as a candidate gene for meat quality traits in an Iberian × Landrace backcross population. The APOA2:c.131T>A polymorphism, located in exon 3 of APOA2 and determining a missense mutation, was associated with the percentage of hexadecenoic acid C16:1(n–9)], linoleic acid C18:2(n–6)], α‐linolenic acid C18:3(n–3)], dihomo‐gamma‐linolenic acid C20:3(n–6)] and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in backfat. Furthermore, this SNP was associated with the global mRNA expression levels of APOA2 in liver and was used as a marker to determine allelic expression imbalance by pyrosequencing. We determined an overexpression of the T allele in heterozygous samples with a mean ratio of 2.8 (T/A), observing a high variability in the allelic expression among individuals. This result suggests that complex regulatory mechanisms, beyond a single polymorphism (e.g. epigenetic effects or multiple cis‐acting polymorphisms), may be regulating APOA2 gene expression. |
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Keywords: | allelic differential expression cis‐regulatory polymorphism meat quality pyrosequencing swine trans‐factors |
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