Genotypes and haplotype combination of ACSL3 gene sequence variants is associated with growth traits in Dezhou donkey

Exploring molecular markers related to economic traits of livestock is of great significance to breeding. Long-chain fatty acid COA synthetase (ACSL) plays a crucial role in lipid synthesis and metabolism, which may affect animal growth. This study was to investigate the polymorphism of ACSL gene and its association with the growth trait of the donkey. Three insertions and two deletions were detected on the introns of ACSL3 gene in 450 Dezhou donkeys using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. After that, linkage disequilibrium analysis found that there was a strong linkage among ACSL3 gene loci in Dezhou donkey. Association analysis of growth traits showed that ACSL3-1, ACSL3-2, ACSL3-3, and ACSL3-4 loci were significantly associated with body weight and other growth traits (P < 0.05). Furthermore, five high frequency haplotypes were identified in Dezhou donkey, and haplotype combination analysis showed that among the first three high-frequency combinations, the low-frequency Hap3Hap3 (II-DD-II-DD-DD) homozygous haplotype combination was lower than the other two groups (Hap1Hap1, Hap5Hap5) in the chest width and chest depth (P < 0.05) of the female. Conclusively, the results of this study indicated that the polymorphisms in ACSL3 gene can be used as molecular markers to participate in donkey breeding.