A mutation in PHKG1 causes high drip loss and low meat quality in Chinese Ningdu yellow chickens.

With increasing societal development and the concurrent improvement in people's quality of life, meat consumption has gradually changed from a focus on "quantity" to "quality". Broiler production is increasingly used as a means to improve meat quality by altering various characteristics, especially its genetic factors. However, until now, little has been known about the genetic variants related to meat quality traits in Chinese purebred chicken populations. To better understand these genetic underpinnings, a total of 17 traits related to meat quality and carcass were measured in 325 Chinese Ningdu yellow chickens. We performed DNA sequencing to detect nucleotide mutations, after which we conducted association studies between PHKG1 gene polymorphisms and traits related to meat quality and carcass. Results. Indicated a large phenotypic variation in meat quality traits. More specifically, the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs15845448 was significantly associated with drip loss at 24 h (P = 8.04 × 10...