Comparison of four Italian beef cattle breeds by means of functional genes.

Eighteen SNPs in 12 candidate genes involved on meat traits were investigated on 1055 candidates for selection in Chianina, Marchigiana, Piemontese and Romagnola breeds, in order to analyze the within and between breed variability with a functional marker approach. High variability at LEP-2, LEP-3 and LEPR markers was detected across breed and the analysis of the relationship between FST and heterozygosity suggested a different selection intensity by breeds for LEP-2. The highest pairwise FST values (0.1189 to 0.1877) were obtained for the comparisons of Piemontese with the other breeds, while the lowest value (0.0296) was observed between Chianina and Marchigiana. The results for breed assignment follows the genetic differentiation, in fact, Piemontese had the highest percentage of correct assignment (87.6), while Marchigiana had the lowest one (47.5). These findings suggest that the functional markers can be more suitable than neutral markers in discriminating breeds in similar morphology if selection played some role in their differentiation.