Data from: Analysis of the porcine APOA2 gene expression in liver, polymorphisms identification and association with fatty acid composition traits

APOA2 is a protein implicated in triglyceride, fatty acid and glucose
metabolism. In pigs, the APOA2 gene is located on pig chromosome 4 (SSC4)
in a QTL region affecting fatty acid composition, fatness and growth
traits. In this study, we evaluated APOA2 as a candidate gene for meat
quality traits in an Iberian × Landrace backcross population. The
APOA2:c.131T>A polymorphism, located in exon 3 of APOA2 and
determining a missense mutation, was associated with the percentage of
hexadecenoic acid [C16:1(n–9)], linoleic acid [C18:2(n–6)], α-linolenic
acid [C18:3(n–3)], dihomo-gamma-linolenic acid [C20:3(n–6)] and
polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in backfat. Furthermore, this SNP was
associated with the global mRNA expression levels of APOA2 in liver and
was used as a marker to determine allelic expression imbalance by
pyrosequencing. We determined an overexpression of the T allele in
heterozygous samples with a mean ratio of 2.8 (T/A), observing a high
variability in the allelic expression among individuals. This result
suggests that complex regulatory mechanisms, beyond a single polymorphism
(e.g. epigenetic effects or multiple cis-acting polymorphisms), may be
regulating APOA2 gene expression.