About the Authors

Li Zhang

Contributed equally to this work with: Li Zhang, Ying Li, Xiujuan Xie

Affiliations Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Agro-animal Genomics and Molecular Breeding and Key Lab of Chicken Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, P.R. China, Agricultural College, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang, 524088, P.R. China

Ying Li

Contributed equally to this work with: Li Zhang, Ying Li, Xiujuan Xie

Affiliations Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Agro-animal Genomics and Molecular Breeding and Key Lab of Chicken Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, P.R. China, Institute of Animal Science, Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Guangzhou, 510640, P.R. China

Xiujuan Xie

Contributed equally to this work with: Li Zhang, Ying Li, Xiujuan Xie

Affiliation Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Agro-animal Genomics and Molecular Breeding and Key Lab of Chicken Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, P.R. China

Haiping Xu

Affiliation Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Agro-animal Genomics and Molecular Breeding and Key Lab of Chicken Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, P.R. China

Zhenqiang Xu

Affiliation Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Agro-animal Genomics and Molecular Breeding and Key Lab of Chicken Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, P.R. China

Jinge Ma

Affiliation Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Agro-animal Genomics and Molecular Breeding and Key Lab of Chicken Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, P.R. China

Bixiao Li

Affiliation Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Agro-animal Genomics and Molecular Breeding and Key Lab of Chicken Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, P.R. China

Shudai Lin

Affiliation Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Agro-animal Genomics and Molecular Breeding and Key Lab of Chicken Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, P.R. China

Qinghua Nie

Affiliation Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Agro-animal Genomics and Molecular Breeding and Key Lab of Chicken Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, P.R. China

Qingbin Luo

Affiliation Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Agro-animal Genomics and Molecular Breeding and Key Lab of Chicken Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, P.R. China

Xiquan Zhang

xqzhang@scau.edu.cn

Affiliation Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Agro-animal Genomics and Molecular Breeding and Key Lab of Chicken Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, P.R. China

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: XZ. Performed the experiments: YL XX. Analyzed the data: HX ZX JM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: BL SL QN QL. Wrote the paper: LZ.