Abstract Liancheng white duck (Anas platyrhynchos) is a precious and rare waterfowl resource in China, and has high meat quality and unique flavor, while the formation mechanism of meat quality is still unclear. Exploring the genes related to meat quality and flavor can not only be helpful for the development and utilization of Liancheng white duck, but also provide a reference for breeding and meat quality evaluation of meat ducks. In this study, RNA-seq was used for transcriptome sequencing to screen differentially expressed genes in breast muscle transcriptome of Liancheng white duck and Cherry Valley duck; and functional annotation, enrichment analysis and qRT-PCR verification were carried out to explore the potential regulatory genes of meat quality formation in Liancheng white duck. A total of 44.31 Gb clean data was obtained by sequencing, and the mapping rate with reference genome was over 77.54%. The edge R analysis identified 912 differentially expressed genes between the two breeds, among which 424 were highly expressed genes and 488 were low expressed genes in Liancheng white duck. In Gene Ontology (GO) annotation, 772 differentially expressed genes were annotated, including 12 biological processes related to the formation of meat flavor substances, such as lipid metabolism, fatty acid metabolism, threonine catabolism, and carboxylic acid metabolism. KEGG pathway analysis showed that the differentially expressed genes were enriched in 179 signaling pathways, among which 12 pathways were significantly enriched, including flavor-related pathways such as the interaction between cytokines and receptors, linoleic acid metabolism and histidine metabolism, glycerophosphate metabolism and transforming growth factor (TGFβ) signaling pathway. According to the annotation of pathway function, the genes such as acidic amino acid decarboxylase 1 (GADL1), coiled-coil domain-containing protein 57 (CCDC57), and pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase, isozyme 4 (PDK4) were screened out and might play an important role in regulating the formation of delicious amino acids and fatty acids in Liancheng white duck, and further affecting the formation of chest muscle quality. Furthermore, 2 high expressed genes and 3 low expressed genes were selected for qRT-PCR verification, and the results were consistent with that of transcriptome sequencing, which indicated that the sequencing results were reliable. The present study provides a reference for further studying on the formation mechanism of meat flavor of Liancheng white duck and selection of genetic markers.
ZHANG Lin-Li,LI Li,ZHU Zhi-Ming, et al. Identification of Candidate Genes Related to Meat Flavor in Liancheng White Duck (Anas platyrhynchos) Based on RNA-seq[J]. 农业生物技术学报, 2021, 29(4): 711-722.
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