Cloning and Expression Levels of TFAM and TFB2M Genes and their Correlation with Meat and Carcass Quality Traits in Jiaxing Black Pig

The coding sequences (CDS) of TFAM and TFB2M genes from Jiaxing Black Pig (JBP) were first obtained by RT-PCR and DNA-seq in the present study. Sequence analyses showed that the TFAM gene contains a 741-bp CDS region encoding 246 amino acids sharing a 100% homology with the sequence on NCBI, while TFB2M gene contains a CDS region of 1176 bp encoding 391 amino acids with two missense mutations. The results of quantitative Real-Time PCR for TFAM and TFB2M revealed that transcripts of the genes were both presented at the highest levels in spleen tissue followed by liver tissue, while the least levels in longissimus dorsi muscle (LDM), and obviously the higher levels in two adipose tissues than those in LDM tissue (P<0.01). Meanwhile, a total of forty-two JBPs were employed in this experiment to investigate the effect of these two genes on the carcass, meat quality traits and flavor substances such as fatty acids, intramuscular fat (IMF) in LDM. As expected, some strong correlations of gene expression abundance of TFAM and TFB2M mRNA in particular tissues such as liver and LDM with carcass and meat quality traits including marbling score, as well as the content of saturated fatty acid (SFA), in JBP were found.