Table 1.
Descriptive statistics for the meat quality phenotypes and the constructed meat quality index.
Fig 1.
Results from the association analysis between gene expression (A) or exon expression (B) and meat quality index. The x-axis represents the location of the gene or exon across the bovine genome. The black line shows a p-value threshold of 1x10-3.
Fig 2.
Volcano plots relating log fold change and p-value for WBSF (A), tenderness (B) and marbling (C). Blue dots represent DE genes. A total of 676 (adjusted p-value ≤ 0.05), 70 (adjusted p-value ≤ 0.1) and 198 (adjusted p-value ≤ 0.1) genes were DE for WBSF, tenderness and marbling, respectively.
Fig 3.
Genes whose isoforms were identified as DE for WBSF (A), tenderness (B) and marbling (C). The x-axis represents gene location across the bovine genome. The black line shows the 0.1 FDR threshold. Different colors represent different chromosomes.
Fig 4.
Scatter plots with regression lines and 95% confidence intervals for gene normalized counts and meat quality index for the top six associated genes.
The meat quality index was constructed using observed phenotypes measured in longissimus dorsi muscle from a multibreed Angus-Brahman population.
Fig 5.
Scatter plots with regression lines and 95% confidence intervals for exon normalized counts and meat quality index for the top nine associated genes.
Fig 6.
Protein-protein interaction network showing upregulated (green) and downregulated (red) genes in tender meat from longissimus dorsi muscle sampled in a multibreed Angus-Brahman population.
Blue boxes show genes that were not identified in the expression or DE analysis but are part of the network.
Table 2.
Genes that were identified at least three times using the expression association and DE analysis approach for meat quality related phenotypes.
Meat quality was recorded in longissimus dorsi muscle from a multibreed Angus-Brahman population.
Table 3.
Genes uncovered by the expression association and DE analysis, and associated with meat quality.