Association of ZYX polymorphisms with carcass and meat quality traits in commercial pigs

Zyxin (ZYX) is one of the proteins in focal adhesions along the actin fibers playing a role in actin organization and signal transduction. By radiation hybrid and genetic mapping we assigned ZYX to porcine chromosome 18 in the area of quantitative traits loci for carcass and meat quality and muscle fiber traits and hence considered ZYX a functional positional candidate gene. Analysis of a newly detected SNPs (c.+279 C>T, c.+399 A>G, c.+522 A>G) in pigs from different commercial breeds (Pietrain [Pi], German Landrace [LR], German Large White × German Landrace [F1] and PiF1) revealed a significant association with carcass traits (including: side- and backfat thickness, loin weight and carcass lean content) and meat quality traits (including: pH, color and drip loss). However, the lack of consistent association across all pig populations in this study indicates that the association of the SNPs may be depending on causal mutations in linkage disequilibrium and/or interactions with other loci.