In this experiment, the AA broiler fat traits and three Chinese special breeds (Shiqiza, Beijing youji and Baier) were used to study the effect of PPAR-alpha gene on fat trait. Coding region of the gene was amplified by seven pairs of primers, and then single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were detected by the technique of single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) and finally confirmed by sequencing. One nucleotide variation was found, the result of chi 2 analysis showed that the distribution of three genotypes was very different among different breeds(P < 0.01). The result of variance analysis showed that the birds with BB genotype had a higher abdominal fat weight than the birds with other genotypes (AA and AB). It implied that PPAR-alpha gene could be a candidate locus or linked to a major gene to significantly affect abdominal fat traits in chicken.