Effects of SNP in TSH-β Gene of Chicken on Economic Traits

GRRC, Hankyong National University, Anseong 456-749, KoreaABSTRACT Thyroid hormone (TH) plays a role in growth of the poultry. Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) stimulates production and distribution of TH, and is a heterodimer which is formed by α- and β-subunits. Most of TSH activity is known to rely on β-subunit. TSH-β gene is located on chicken chromosome 26 and associated with growth performances. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the association of TSH- β SNP (G1031C) with economic traits (layday, layw, layno, bw150, bw270, layw270) in Korean Native Black chicken, Rhode Island Red and Cornish. Allele frequency of GG genotype in Rhode Island Red (RIR) was found to be 1.00 in this study. A significant effect was only observed on body weight at day 150 in Cornish. In Cornish, body weights of chicken with the CC genotype (302.15±6.336) were significantly higher than that of the GG genotype (294.56±4.537) (p<0.05). These findings suggest that the G1031C SNP of TSH-β gene can be used for improvement of growth-related traits in Cornish.(Key words : thyroid-stimulating hormone-β, single nucleotide polymorphism, allele frequency, body weight, Cornish)