Chicken C/EBPζ gene: Expression profiles, association analysis, and identification of functional variants for abdominal fat

ABSTRACT CCAAT enhancer binding protein ζ (C/EBPζ) plays an important role in adipose proliferation and differentiation in humans. However, very little is known about the effect of C/EBPζ on the growth and development of adipose tissues in domesticated animals. The present study attempted to investigate the mRNA expression profiles of chicken C/EBPζ in a variety of tissues; analyze the association of its variants with abdominal fat; and identify the functional variants for abdominal fat. The tissue expression profiles revealed that C/EBPζ was highly expressed in 19 tissues obtained from broilers. The expression level of C/EBPζ in fat broilers was significantly lower than that in lean broilers in the duodenum, ileum, cecum, kidney, pectoral muscle, and liver (P C exhibited significant correlation with abdominal fat traits (P C locus was remarkably stronger than that of the C allele (P C locus was located in the binding region of the transcription factor SOX5, which possesses the ability to transform C/EBPζ transcription efficiency through binding with SOX5. In summary, the data obtained from this study suggested that C/EBPζ is a potential candidate gene responsible for abdominal fat deposition in chicken and that g.7085A>C is a functional SNP that can be promisingly leveraged for marker assisted selection (MAS) in future chicken breeding programs.