Genome-wide association studies of chicken (Gallus gallus L.) breast meat color characteristics

One of the most important parameters of meat quality is its color characteristics, which largely determines consumer demand for these products. Special color scales are used to assess the quality of meat based on its color spectrum. The L*a*b* scale is common the effectiveness of which has been shown in meat livestock farming. A number of studies have established the genetic determination of meat color characteristics for farm animals and poultry. SNPs and candidate genes that determine the expression of this trait have been identified (J. Sun et al., 2022; X. Guo et al., 2023). Here, we submit data on genome-wide association studies of the spectrum of color parameters of breast meat of F2 chickens of the resource population based on genome-wide genotyping data. The aim of research was to search for SNPs and identify genes associated with meat color in chickens. For the research, an F2 model resource chickens population ( n = 260, vivarium of the Ernst Federal Research Center for Animal Husbandry, 2021-2023) was obtained by crossing two chicken breeds contrasting in meat quality, the Russian White (slow growth) and Cornish (fast growth). The poultry of F2 resource population was genotyped using high-density Illumina Chicken iSelect BeadChip 60k (Illumina, Inc., USA). At the age of 9 weeks, birds were slaughtered. The spectra of breast meat were measured according to the L*a*b* color scale using a portable spectrophotometer CM-700d (Konica Minolta, Japan). Based on the genotype and phenotype data, genome-wide association studies were carried out using PLINK 1.9 software with accepted restrictions (geno 0.1, mind 0.1, maf 0.03). The threshold significance criterion was set to p 2 resource population was characterized by a high coefficient of variability in the green (a*) and blue (b*) spectrum of meat color, from 19.99 % to 97.23 %. According to the L parameter, chickens showed relatively low variability not exceeding 9.75 %. Based on the GWAS analysis, 60 significant SNPs were identified, including those associated with the color spectrum L* (28 SNPs), a* (48 SNPs), and b* (4 SNPs). These SNPs were located on chromosomes GGA1 (10 SNPs), GGA2 (3 SNPs), GGA3 (18 SNPs), GGA7 (2 SNPs), GGA8 (4 SNPs), GGA10 (2 SNPs), GGA12 (7 SNPs), GGA13 (9 SNPs), GGA17 (4 SNPs), and GGA18 (1 SNP). We identified 270 candidate genes associated with the studied traits, including 30 genes that contain the identified SNPs. The results of the study can be helpful in further genomic selection of chickens for improving meat quality.