QTL for meat colour and pH IN Bos Taurus cattle

Abstract

An experimental cattle backcross between the Jersey and Limousin breeds was performed in Australia and New Zealand to map quantitative trait loci (QTL) for diverse production traits. Six crossbred sires and their progeny were genotyped for 253 informative microsatellite markers covering the 29 bovine autosomes. This study reports the results for meat colour and pH recorded on 355 backcross animals in Australia. Results of the genome scan using regression interval mapping revealed evidence for QTL (<5% chromosome-wise level) on BTA10, 18, 19, and 27 for meat colour and BTA2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 16, 24 and 27 for meat pH. A number of detected QTL were mapped to genomic regions likely to contain the 'RN' or 'RYR1' genes, which are known to affect meat quality traits in pigs.