Identification of Candidate Genes Associated with Meat Production of Aberdeen Angus Cattle

The use of GWASs in agriculture allows associations between SNPs and quantitative or qualitative traits in cattle to be estimated. This study investigated the relationships among a number of economically useful carcass traits (slaughter weight, meat yield, and meat marbling) with a group of SNPs that can act as DNA markers. Blood samples from Aberdeen Angus bulls (n = 260) were used as material for SNP genotyping. Genetic architecture for the kill yield trait showed the presence of 31 SNPs. Three SNPs were found to be the most reliable: BTB-00197584 (<i>p</i> = 7.20 × 10^-5), Hapmap46735-BTA-86653 (<i>p</i> = 5.05 × 10^-5), and BTB-00676077 (<i>p</i> = 7.02 × 10^-5). There were 10 SNPs associated with meat yield. For meat yield, 7 SNPs were identified, four of them exceeding the threshold of established validity: ARS-BFGL-NGS-30557 (<i>p</i> = 1.28 × 10^-12), ARS-BFGL-NGS-68920, ARS-BFGL-NGS-30466 on chromosome 8 (<i>p</i> = 1.20 × 10^-6 and 3.03 × 10^-6, respectively) and ARS-BFGL-NGS-40640 (<i>p</i> = 7.10 × 10^-6). For marbling, 11 SNPs were identified on 6 of 29 chromosomes. These SNPs can act as potential markers for productivity assessment in cattle.