Identification of SNPs in ME1 gene and association analysis with meat quality traits in Chinese Red cattle

The objective of this study was to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in coding regions of bovine ME1 gene and to evaluate if the polymorphisms are associated with meat quality traits in Chinese Red cattle. Four SNPs were identified: NW_001495544:g.1721768G>A in exon 2, g.1653796T>A in exon 4, g.1649532G>A in exon 5, and g.1546272T>C in exon 12 and they were genotyped by applying the PCR-RFLP method. Statistical analysis showed that two SNPs, g.1649532G>A and g.1546272T>C, were significantly associated with cooking loss and pH24h (P < 0.05). But no statistically significant differences were observed in the g.1721768G>A and g.1653796A>T SNPs for meat quality traits tested in Chinese Red cattle. This suggests that ME1 gene is a candidate that may have effects on meat quality traits in cattle.