Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), that usually occurs with a modification in single nucleotide among the population of 1000 nucleotides. Such changes in nucleotides have been investigated and been associated by meat scientist for economically important traits and to increase economical profits in stock breeding. Pluralities in the study have correlated SNPs of potential candidate gene with economically important traits in domestic animals have been put forward. In chickens, INS, IGF1, IGF1R, IGFBP, CAPN1, CAPN3, GHSR, FATP1, FGFBP1, FGFBP2, apoVlDL-Ⅱ, PB1, miR-1614-3p, DAAM1, Wnt3A, LRP5, CHP, RHOA, MAPK9, SFRP1, ATGL, PGC-1α, NPY, GnRHR, PRL, TGFβ2, CASR. UCP, ADSL, STAT5b, LRP2 and CTSD genes have been found to have significant effects on body weight, breast muscle weight, carcass weight and egg number. For the similar reasons, SNPs of these genes have been considered useful DNA markers for the improvement economic value of poultry. Although further studies on different breeds of chickens would be required to segregate such dataset for different breeds of chickens.

The purpose of the livestock industry is to pursuit economic profits by increasing the economic productivity of livestock. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), that is characterized by one variation out of every 1000 polymorphisms, to increase economical benefits in stock breeding has been extensively studied. Particularly, replete number of investigations have been put forward that has associated SNPs of candidate genes with economically important traits such as carcass weight (CW), longissimus muscle area (LMA), backfat thickness (BFT) and marbling score (MS) in beef cattle. Bovine genome sequencing and HapMap projects have provided, millions of SNPs in the cattle genome. However, till date studies related to the association of the SNPs with economic traits in beef cattles are meager. Discovering of SNPs bovine whole genome would certainly be useful genetic assets for the development of SNP marker for economically important traits in beef cattle.

The role of Fatty acid binding protein 4 (FABP4) gene is critical for lipid metabolism and for maintaining homeostasis in adipocytes. Association between Hanwoo carcass traits and FABP4 gene g.7516G>C SNP has been reported previously, however, its association and how does it influence Korean brindle and black cattle has not been demonstrated and established till date. For this purpose, the study was planned to analyze the SNP association (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) (g.7516G>C) in FABP4 gene and gather genetic information on economic traits of Korean brindle cattle and black cattle. As per sequence of bovine FABP4 gene available (Genbank accession No. NC_007312.4), one pair of primers (5’-ATA TAG TCC ATA GGG TGG CAA AGA-3’ and 5’-AAC CTC TCT TTG AAT TCT CCA TTC T-3’) was designed to amplify a 452bp product of the FABP4 gene including the region of 7417–7868. The SNP, detected by polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) methods using restriction enzyme MspA1I, was genotyped in 117 animals of brindle cattle and 24 animals of black cattle population. Statistical analysis revealed that the FABP4 genotype significantly (p<0.05) affect with carcass weight, but there was no significant association with any other economic traits was observed in brindle as well as in black cattle. In conclusion, these results suggested that SNP (g.7516G>C), located in FABP4 gene, could be used as important DNA marker of economic traits in Korean brindle cattle. Furthermore, we suggest that additional samples needs to further analysed to make related data exclusively authentic.

The aim of this study is to investigate the genetic interrelationships between economic or meat quality traits (birth weight, weaning weight, average daily gain, market weight, carcass weight, backfat thickness, water, ash, fat, protein, water holding capacity and pH) and 6 SNPs located on six selected candidate genes (MC4R, PGK2, TNNI1, TNNI2, PIK3C3, and CTSK) in Korean native pigs. The genotypes were identified in the 6 SNPs by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) procedure, and association of the genotype on economically important traits was analyzed by general liner model. According to the analyzed results, the MC4R c.1426A>G was correlated with birth weight (p=0.032) and the PGK2 g.122T>G was associated with pH (p=0.026). These findings obtained in the present revealed that the each SNPs of MC4R and PGK2 could be useful as potential genetic markers for birth weight and pH in Korean native pigs, respectively.

The melanocortin receptor type 4 (MC4R) gene is expressed in the hypothalamus and regulates energy intake and body weight. Recently, it has been reported that obesity and energy balance in human were also regulated by the MC4R gene. Therefore the objective of this study was to identify the polymorphism on the MC4R gene SNP C1786T and its association with economic traits in Korean native cattle (brindle and black cattle) by PCR-RFLP. A total of 125 cattle from the two breeds were tested for economic traits (meat quality index, backfat, thickness, carcass weight, longissimus muscle area and marbling score) and data was analyzed using SAS program. In the results, C allele had highest frequency than G allele frequency in the both breeds and the gene was significantly associated with meat quantity index and backfat thickness in brindle cattle breed. However, in black cattle, the gene was significantly associated with longissimus muscle area (p<0.05). These results suggest that C1786T SNP of the MC4R gene may be useful as a genetic marker for economic traits in the brindle and black cattle.

This study was carried out to investigate the influence of artificial insemination (AI) failure in 1,619 Korean native cows at Gangwon East area, Korea. The average AI failure rate was 37.02% in the cows and the highest rate was 40.85% in Yangyang-city. Based on the parity in the cows, the AI failure rate was 49.14% and 29.91% in the first and fifth parity cows, respectively. Whereas cows until fifth parity were decreased in AI failure, cows with sixth or more parity showed an upturning AI failure trends with the increasing of parity number. AI failure rate incidence according to the rump fat thickness measured by ultrasound was 28.9% and 33.4% at 5 mm to 10 mm and over than 15 mm, respectively. There was a positive correlation (0.2186) between AI failure rate of mother and that of their offspring cows. That is, offspring of dams with high AI failure rate showed also higher AI failure than those of dams having lower AI failure rate. In conclusion, these results indicate that the AI failure rate was closely related to the rump fat thickness, parity number, and conception rate of mother cows. In addition, these results might strengthen the basis to improve the reproductive performance in Korean native cows.

Evolutionary processes such as recombination and natural selection usually develop over extended periods of time; however, they get accelerated in cases of hybridization. Interspecies hybrids exhibit novel genome which are exposed to natural selection, thus provides a key to unravel the ultimate causes of adaptation and speciation. On the other hand, with rapid upsurge in demand for stronger food security has been confronting us on daily basis. Lately, the scientists have started to gather are now attracted by specific extraordinary traits of different animals by way interspecies hybridization combining the superior genetic material from different animals. Besides, this technology could also explore new life saving vaccines and medicines and also would find beneficial in conserving wild heritage of endangered and critical species. Several researchers have also done commendable work on interspecies hybridization with some degree of success. Nevertheless, lots of obstacles and hurdles still pose for this phenomenal technology to reach to its final destination. This review will point out the hurdles on interspecies hybridization in reference to the natural mating and somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).

Since the Bovine sequencing and HapMap projects, there have been millions of genetic variations particularly including single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) available throughout the cattle genome. While cataloguing substantial amounts of SNPs, copy number variation (CNV) has recently become getting great attention as an another form of genetic variation which is extensively distributed across the cattle genome. As it has been well known that CNVs can account for substantial proportions of phenotypic variance in other species including human, CNVs are highly expected to explain genetic variations of diverse economically important traits in cattle. Currently, two main approaches such as hybridization-based microarray and massively parallel sequencing-based method have been successfully applied to detect CNVs throughout the cattle genome. Although there is obvious difference of capabilities to detect genome-wide CNVs at fine scales between different platforms applied, all currently completed investigations exhibited that CNVs are extensively spread throughout the cattle genome as observed in other species. Despite these successes, there are still severe lacks of researches to identify multiple levels of CNVs from diverse cattle or multiple individuals, suggesting that there are a number of CNVs remained undiscovered. Furthermore, there are almost few investigations available to elucidate how each CNV is associated with traits of interest in cattle, so such functional study should be followed along with saturating most of potential CNVs on cattle genome.

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of wormwood meal addition on constituent of blood, and liver fatty acid in broiler chickens. Two-day old 25 male commercial broiler chicks were distributed to 5 treatments (wormwood meal levels ; T1 (1%), T2 (3%), T3 (5%), T4 (10%), and control (C)) for 5 weeks. Free fatty acids of liver were a little different among the treatments and the palmitic, stearic, oleic, and linoleic acids were occupied 92.5% of total free fatty acids. Hemoglobin and hematocrite concentration of blood were significantly decreased (p<0.05) as the levels of wormwood meal increased, and serum albumin concentration of broilers was little different between 0 week and 5 week experiments. Also serum cholesterol, phospholipid, total cholesterol, and triglyceride concentration of liver in broilers were little different during the 5 weeks experiment. Serum triglyceride concentration was significantly increased (p<0.05) as levels of wormwood meal increased. These results indicate that dietary wormwood meal addition has a little positive effect on increasing unsaturated fatty acid and decreasing saturated fatty acid.

Stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD1) gene plays important role in fatty acid composition. In order to find marker-assisted selection (MAS) for improving the economic trait, this study was performed to identify the 878T>C single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) on SCD1 gene. Three genotypes (CC, CT, and TT) were detected in 878T>C SNP of SCD1 gene from 103 Hanwoo population by polymorphism chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) and economic traits were analyzed by general linear model. The frequency of allele C and T was 0.534 and 0.466, also the genotype frequency of CC, CT and TT was 0.252, 0.563, and 0.184, respectively in the Hanwoo population. The TT genotype of SCD1 gene showed a significantly higher measures (p<0.05) of carcass weight (CW) than CT, CC genotype. No significant association was detected between genotype and other economic trait (marbling, backfat thickness, and longissimus muscle area) in this study. The results revealed that SCD1 gene 878T>C SNP could be useful for effective MAS to increase the economic quality in Hanwoo population.

This study was carried out to investigate artificial insemination (AI) failure status and frozen semen characteristics in Korean proven bulls‘ number (KPN) semen used for AI of Hanwoo cows in Gangwon East region (Gangneung, Donghae, Taebaek, Samcheok, Sokcho, Yangyang, Goseong). Among semen used for AI, AI failure rate showed lowest at KPN506 (27.6%), whereas highest at KPN593 (77.2%). Correlations of AI failure in between Korean proven bulls semen and cows was 0.2941, which means that AI failure rate of Korean proven bulls semen may have respectable effect on reproduction of Hanwoo cow. In addition, present study was conducted to investigate spermatozoal viability rate, ruptured acrosome rate and active mitochondria in frozen Korean proven bulls semen with flow cytometry. The semen of KPN593 showed significantly (p<0.05) higher viability rate in KPN593 (30.49%) than that in KPN637 (37.34%). Furthermore, percentage of ruptured acrosome was lower in KPN637 as 21.37% than in KPN637 (21.37%), but it was not statistically significant. In conclusion, these results indicate that choice of Korean proven bulls semen may correlate positively with conception rate in Hanwoo cow. Therefore, KPN with high AI failure rate might be avoid to increase conception rate and characteristics of frozen semen might be evaluated before its use for AI.

Myopalladin (MYPN) is an important expression gene associated with regulation of Z-line structure in muscle and maintains sarcomeric integrity. In this study, we investigated the association between MYPN A1795G SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) and carcass traits (LMA, longissimus muscle area; CW, carcass weight; BF, backfat thickness; MS, marbling score) in Korean cattle. The MYPN A1795G SNP was genotyped in 212 steers and analyzed the associations with carcass traits by PCR-RFLP (Restriction fragment length polymorphism) method. The allele frequencies were 0.566 for G allele and 0.434 for A allele. And the genotype frequencies of GG, GA, and AA genotype were 32.1%, 49%, and 18.9%, respectively. Association analysis indicated that the A1795G SNP of MYPN gene showed a significant association with LMA (p<0.05). The steers with GG genotype had higher LMA than those with the genotypes AA. But no significant associations were observed in other carcass traits (CW, BF, MS). The steers with the GG genotype showed higher CW and BF than those with the genotypes AA and GA. These results suggest that the A1795G SNP of the MYPN gene is associated with LMA and may be useful for candidate marker-assisted selection to increase the levels of LMA in Korean cattle.

Enforcement of the beef traceability system can block the sale of imported beef disguised Hanwoo and help customers to know detailed information of the Hanwoo beef while purchase. This study was carried out to investigate the possibilities of identifying DNA upon various ripening and roasting methods (soy sauce, gochujang sauce, 10% vinegar, 10% coke, 10% Cheongha, 10% Soju, completely burned out, raw, normal roasted, dried, and boiled) employed for beef traceability system. Completely burned out meat could not yied useful DNA in the sample, hence wa not analysed. The amplified peaks in most of the samples appeared equally barring completely burned out meat. However, roasted beef after ripened in soy sauce showed new peaks or deletion of a peaks with two markers. The DNA allele height and the amount of extracted DNA in roasted beef after ripening in 10% Cheongha was found to be higher than those in the raw beef. No significant correlations between DNA allele height and the amount of extracted DNA within the samples was noticed. Also, these results suggest that beef traceability using microsatellite (MS) markers is possible in various roasting beef because of bovine specific MS markers. Therefore, beef traceability system by DNA identify test would give the confidence in food safety and beef distribution system to customers.

The aim of this study was to analyze the reproduction and breeding status of 1655 Hanwoo (Korean cattle) cows raised in Gangwon East area (Gangneung, Taebaek, Donghae, Yangyang, Samcheok, Sokcho, and Goseong). The average age in months and the parity of Hanwoo was 43.6 and 1.7 respectively. Registration status of the cows were 42.0% (pedigree), 30.2% advanced), 20.0% (fundamental), and 4.0% (non-registry). Korean proven bull's number (KPN) 517 and KPN 588 were preferred 25.8%, 16.2% respectively for artificial insemination (AI) of the cows. Appearance rate of over 1st meat quality grade in the offsprings obtained from AI of top 6 KPNs was 90% which was above national average (slaughters only 77.81%, total 63.12). Results indicated genetic influence the KPN for meat quality grade of their offspring. Strong correleation between AI failure rate of mother cows and their offspring cows has been observed. KPN information, meat quality grade, and AI failure percentage would be quite useful factors to understand their relationship in further improvement of Hanwoo in Gangwon East area.

Analysis of meat quality grade based on the DNA identity test samples were done on 320 Hanwoo (Korean cattle) raised in Gyeonggi region of Korea. 62.29% of cows and 91.35% of steers showed high quality which was above 1st beef grade. However, differences were observed between Gyeonggi Hanwoo and total slaughtered Hanwoo in Gyeonggi in the year 2009, though the sampling was entirely based high quality meat. Meat samples of pedigree registered cattle showed high rate of above 1st meat grade compared to advanced and fundamentally registered cattle. Pedigree registry is associated with quality grade of beef like the sex of cattle. Appearance rate of above 1st beef grade in offsprings of the top 9 Korean Proven Bulls produced through mating to Gyeonggi Hanwoo was 43.27% which was found to be higher than the average grade in cows (47.3%) and was 13.08% higher than the average grade in steers (77.49%). Our results showed superior genetic characters of Korean Proven Bulls which favors and influence the meat quality grade of their offsprings. Furthermore, our results claim that sex of Hanwoo irrespective of pedigreed or Korean Proven Bulls affects and/or influence the meat quality. Conclusively, the results could therefore be used as a basic data for the improvement of beef quality. However, paternity test by DNA typing and huge sample needs to be analysed to authenticate the findings.

There are four (yellow, brindle, black, black in Jeju) kinds of native cattle in Korea. But only twelve hundred Korean brindle cattle (KBC) are remaining in limited areas of Korea and the genetic lineage, diversity, polymorphisms of KBC has not been identified. To analysis genetic polymorphism of KBC, 33 KBC were characterized using 11 microsatellite markers. Size of microsatellite marker was decided using Gene Mapper software after analysis ABI 3130XL. The average of allele numbers of KBC was 6.7 in this study, but that of Hanwoo was 10.0 in our previous report. The observed and expected heterozygosities of KBC were 0.719 and 0.738 but those of Hanwoo were 0.751 and 0.760 in our previous report. Also polymorphism information content (PIC) values were average 0.690 in KBC but 0.725 in Hanwoo. These results demonstrate that genetic polymorphism of KBC have decreased because the population was limited.

Beef traceability, a system that provides all the records of beef production, helps customers purchase that they get to know detailed information of the Hanwoo beef. This study was carried out to investigate the DNA identity possibility in various cooking methods to ripen meat (soy sauce, gochujang sauce, 10% vinegar, 10% coke, 10% Cheongha, 10% Soju, raw, dried, and decayed) for beef traceability. The DNA content of decayed beef was higher than those of other cooking methods. It is thought that result of mixed pollutant, it did not affect amplified DNA allele height because of bovine specific microsatellite (MS) markers. The ripened sample in 10% vinegar 3 days was lowest a mount of extracted DNA (156 ng) and amplified DNA allele height (based on the raw samples to 38%) by MS markers compared with the other cooking methods. There are no significant correlation between amplified DNA allele height and the amount of extracted DNA. Therefore, beef DNA identity test in various cooking methods to ripen meat can used by bovine specific MS markers. Beef traceability system by DNA identify test will give more confidence in food safety to customers