Genetic variants in the TORC2 gene promoter and their association with body measurement and carcass quality traits in Qinchuan cattle

Rajwali Khan; Sayed Haidar Abbas Raza; Hongfang Guo; Wang Xiaoyu; Wu Sen; Syed Muhammad Suhail; Abdur Rahman; Irfan Ullah; Ayman Hassan Abd El-Aziz; Zeinab Manzari; Akil Alshawi; Linsen Zan

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0227254

Genetic variants in the TORC2 gene promoter and their association with body measurement and carcass quality traits in Qinchuan cattle

PLoS One. 2020 Feb 14;15(2):e0227254. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227254. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Rajwali Khan¹, Sayed Haidar Abbas Raza¹, Hongfang Guo¹, Wang Xiaoyu¹, Wu Sen^{1

2}, Syed Muhammad Suhail³, Abdur Rahman³, Irfan Ullah⁴, Ayman Hassan Abd El-Aziz⁵, Zeinab Manzari⁶, Akil Alshawi⁷, Linsen Zan^{1

8}

Affiliations

¹ College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, P.R. China.
² Qinghai Academy of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Qinghai University, Xining, China.
³ Department of Livestock Management, Breeding and Genetics, The University of Agriculture Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan.
⁴ College of Bio-medical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China.
⁵ Animal Husbandry and Animal Wealth Development Department, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Damanhour University, Damanhour, Egypt.
⁶ Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran.
⁷ School of Life Science University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
⁸ National Beef Cattle Improvement Research Center, Yangling, China.

Abstract

The TORC2 gene is responsible for nutrient metabolism, gluconeogenesis, myogenesis and adipogenesis through the PI3K-Akt, AMPK, glucagon and insulin resistance signaling pathways. Sequencing of PCR amplicons explored three novel SNPs at loci g.16534694G>A, g.16535011C>T, and g.16535044A>T in the promoter region of the TORC2 gene in the Qinchuan breed of cattle. Allelic and genotypic frequencies of these SNPs deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) (P < 0.05). SNP1 genotype GG, SNP2 genotype CT and SNP3 genotype AT showed significantly (P <0.05) larger body measurement and improved carcass quality traits. Haplotype H1 (GCA) showed significantly (p<0.01) higher transcriptional activity (51.44%) followed by H4 (ATT) (34.13%) in bovine preadipocytes. The diplotypes HI-H3 (GG-CC-AT), H1-H2 (GG-CT-AT) and H3-H4 (GA-CT-TT) showed significant (P<0.01) associations with body measurement and improved carcass quality traits. Analysis of the relative mRNA expression level of the TORC2 gene in different tissues within two different age groups revealed a significant increase (P<0.01) in liver, small intestine, muscle and fat tissues with growth from calf stage to adult stage. We can conclude that variants mapped within TORC2 can be used in marker-assisted selection for carcass quality and body measurement traits in breed improvement programs of Qinchuan cattle.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Body Weights and Measures*
Bone and Bones*
Cattle
Female
Genetic Association Studies / methods*
Mechanistic Target of Rapamycin Complex 2 / genetics*
Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / genetics
Promoter Regions, Genetic / genetics*
Quantitative Trait Loci / genetics

Substances

Mechanistic Target of Rapamycin Complex 2

Grants and funding

The study was supported by the National Science and Technology Support Projects (No. 2015BAD03B04); National 863 Program of China (No.2013AA102505); the National Modern Agricultural Industry Special Program (No. CARS-37); National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFD0501700) and Technical Innovation Engineering Project of Shaanxi Province (#2016 KTCL02-15).