RH mapping and real time evaluation of seven porcine candidate genes for meat quality previously identified by means of microarray

Pork is one of the most widely consumed meats worldwide. The selection for efficiency of ham production and quality is of major importance in modern Italian pig production. Gene expression profiles between two pools of six individuals constituting the extreme tails of the meat quality Gaussian distribution from 100 pure breed animals has been previously studied by means of microarray. Among 437 differentially expressed ESTs (Expressed Sequence Tags), seven could be considered candidate genes for meat quality. In fact, these genes were upregulated in animals of the positive tail and they were involved in insulin and muscle metabolism. Therefore, these genes were chosen to be evaluated by quantitative Real-Time PCR. IPP1 and HPRT genes, previously tested in a swine trascriptome analysis, were used as reference genes. These seven genes were also mapped on the swine chromosome using the IMpRH7000 panel. Two-point and multipoint analyses were carried out with assignment of markers on the current IMpRH map with LOD=6.0. At the same time, the PigQTLdb database gave positions of the QTL"s flanking markers. Our candidate genes were located in the same regions of putative QTLs related to meat quality.