A simple PCR-based allele detection system has been developed to assist in the management of the two most prevalent double-muscled (mh) breeds in the U.S. Application of this assay will permit the implementation of structured mating systems dependent on precise genotypes at the mh locus. The genetic assay uses standard fluorescent genotyping technology and relies on the unique nucleotide compos...

Mice and cattle with genetic deficiencies in myostatin exhibit dramatic increases in skeletal muscle mass, suggesting that myostatin normally suppresses muscle growth. Whether this increased muscling results from prenatal or postnatal lack of myostatin activity is unknown. Here we show that myostatin circulates in the blood of adult mice in a latent form that can be activated by acid treatment....

Genetically modified pigs are increasingly used for biomedical and agricultural applications. The efficient CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing system holds great promise for the generation of gene-targeting pigs without selection marker genes. In this study, we aimed to disrupt the porcine myostatin (MSTN) gene, which functions as a negative regulator of muscle growth. The transfection efficiency of porc...

Mutations in the myostatin (MSTN) gene can inactivate its expression and result in a non-functional protein, which leads to dramatic muscularity and a "double-muscling" phenomenon in many species. Using gene sequencing and polymerase chain reaction-single-strand conformation polymorphism methods, polymorphisms of the MSTN gene were investigated as a candidate marker for growth in 288 goats. The...

Myostatin is a member of the transformating growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) superfamily of proteins and is produced almost exclusively in skeletal muscle tissue, where it is secreted and circulates as a serum protein. Myostatin acts as a negative regulator of muscle mass through the canonical SMAD2/3/4 signaling pathway. Naturally occurring myostatin mutants exhibit a 'double muscling' phenotype ...

To examine the extent of the effect of muscular hypertrophy character in beef of northern-Spanish breeds, animal performance and carcass characteristics of 152 finishing steers from 5 genotypes were studied: 32 yearling bulls from a rustic Asturiana de la Montaña (AM) breed, 96 yearling bulls from Asturiana de los Valles (AV) breed, divided in 3 groups depending on the presence of the gene resp...

The objective of this study was to determine the relative contributions of Piedmontese inheritance (0, 25, 50, or 75%) and myostatin genotype (+/+, mh/+, and mh/mh) to tenderness of four major muscles. Matings were made to produce animals with 0 (+/+), 1 (mh/+), or 2 (mh/mh) inactive myostatin alleles that were known to result in normal muscling, heavy muscling, and extremely heavy muscling, re...