In Silico Protein Investigation and Correlation Analysis of Growth Hormone Gene and Growth Traits in European Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus labrax)

In Silico Protein Investigation and Correlation Analysis of Growth Hormone Gene and Growth Traits in European Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article In Silico Protein Investigation and Correlation Analysis of Growth Hormone Gene and Growth Traits in European Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) Emel Özcan-Gökçek, Raziye Işık, Bilge Karahan, Kutsal Gamsız, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3911408/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract The growth hormone ( GH ) gene plays a regulatory role in postnatal somatic growth, metabolism, and development in vertebrates and fish. The genetic variations in a partial region of the GH gene and its associations with growth traits were studied using DNA sequencing in 200 European sea bass ( Dicentrarchus labrax ) individuals. We identified 5 haplotypes (HAP1-5) and 10 novel SNPs (g.1557 A > T, g.1611 T > C, g.1663 C > G, g.1799 T > C, g.1824 T > C, g.1912 T > A, and g.2052 G > C) in the GH gene in European sea bass. The genotypes of g.1611 T > C locus of the GH gene were found to be significantly associated with total weight, filet weight, and head length). The association between the GH g.1557A > T genotypes and preanal and abdominal length was statistically significant ( p T loci having the synonymous mutation in phenylalanine amino acid were significantly associated with standard length (p < 0.05). HAP4 reported the highest weight and length traits than the other haplotypes ( p < 0.05). It is suggested that HAP4 should be used as a potential marker to improve the accuracy of selection in European sea bass in Mediterranean conditions. Dicentrarchus labrax growth hormone candidate gene SNP polymorphism Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Introduction The GH gene has a wide range of effects on different aspects of fish biology, including appetite, reproduction, and immune function in vertebrates (Clayton et al. 2011 ; Wang et al. 2015 ). Growth is a multifaceted biological process influenced by factors like nutrition, consumption, and physiological functions, primarily controlled by the HPS axis involving pitutuary growth hormone (GH) secretion and hepatic/extra-hepatic insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) (Vélez et al. 2017 ; Teng et al. 2020 ; Triantaphyllopoulos et al. 2020 ). GH, binds to receptors in target organs, triggering the release of igf 1 and initiating a process that regulates the metabolism of proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates in fish cells (McCormick 2001 ; Cheng and Sun 2015 ; Bi et al. 2021 ; Nisembaum et al. 2021 ; Ibrahim et al. 2023 ), as well as influencing food conservation and fasting metabolism (McMenamin and Parichy 2013 ; Wang et al. 2013 ). GH gene serving as the primary controller of postnatal somatic growth, has been shown to have a significant role in promoting anabolic processes like cell division and protein synthesis (Ma et al. 2016 ). Besides this gene regulates metamorphosis in fish larvae, and osmoregulation against rapid salinity and temprature changes (McCormick 2001 ; Vargas-Chacoff et al. 2009 ; Clayton et al. 2011 ; Bi et al. 2021 ; Özcan-Gökçek and Işık 2023 ). The positive growth response to growth trials in aquaculture species such as coho salmon ( Oncorhynchus kisutch ) (Barrett and McKeown 1988 ), juvenile golden pompano ( Trachinotus ovatus ) (Zhou et al. 2015 ), and gilthead sea bream ( Sparus aurata ) has been reported to be strongly associated with molecular markers of growth hormone (GH), insulin-like growth factors (IGFs), IGF binding protein-5 (IGFBP-5) (Vélez et al. 2017 ). All of these studies indicate that GH plays a vital role in the somatic growth and survival of fish in all life stages. Aquaculture production has become one of the most demanded product categories in the food sector due to increased population growth, decreased natural fish stocks, and consumer preferences. The growth and product quality of the species concerned must be improved for the sustainability of aquaculture under these conditions. (Vélez et al. 2017 ). The European sea bass ( Dicentrarchus labrax , Linnaeus 1758), belonging to the Moronidae (Perciformes) family, is an economically significant aquaculture species. It plays a crucial role in the profitability and sustainability of the aquaculture industry in the Mediterranean region. The global production of European sea bass reached approximately 299,810 tons in 2021 (FAO 2023 ). Mediterranean countries play a significant role in leading production as Türkiye, Greece, Egypt, and Spain. European sea bass can achieve a size of 250–400 g in 18–24 months (Vandeputte et al. 2019 ). The factors that play a crucial role in influencing the productivity of sea bass aquaculture include growth, feed efficiency, mortality rate, and diseases (Kousoulaki et al. 2015 ; Muniesa et al. 2020 ). Increasing the meat yield while shortening the long growing period in fish such as sea bass is a foremost issue of fish breeding (De-Santis and Jerry 2007 ). The GH gene has been reported as a candidate gene in studies of genetic variation associated with growth traits in farm animals and aquaculture species. The first gene transfer studies in goldfish ( Carrasius aurata ) utilized the rGH gene (Zhu et al. 1985 ). The transgenic GH genes could significantly increase the growth rate in more than 30 fish species due to the conserved regulatory functions of GH in somatic growth (Li et al. 2010). Therefore, it is important to identify the genome-wide genes in fish that are associated with growth and meat traits. Various studies have been carried out on the relationship between GH gene polymorphisms and growth traits in fish species such as Salvelinus alpinus (Tao and Boulding 2003 ), Cynoglossus semilaevis (Zhao et al. 2014 ), red sea bream ( Pagrus major ) (Sawayama and Takagi 2015 ), ( Pelteobagrus fulvidraco (Li et al. 2017 ), Oreochromis niloticus (Jaser et al. 2017 ; Dias et al. 2019 ), Cyprinus carpio (Liu et al. 2017 ; Hu et al. 2019 ), snapper ( Chrysophrys auratus ) (Ashton et al. 2019 ) and Siniperca chuatsi (Li et al. 2016 , Sun et al. 2019 ). The primary aim of the study was to explore potential polymorphisms and associations between these identified polymorphisms and various growth traits in the European sea bass. The second objective of the study is to determine whether the identified amino acid changes induce any alterations in the three-dimensional (3D) structure of proteins. Materials and Methods Sampling and DNA isolation The sampling, carried out post-harvest, did not necessitate ethical approval at this phase, as it was not specifically mandated by the Ege University Animal Ethics Committee. Fish larvae of similar age were reared and managed under comparable conditions in two commercial hatcheries. The larvae were produced through mass spawning in a single day, utilizing two broodstock tanks with 15 males and 15 females stocked in each hatchery, all within commercial settings. The stocking density of larvae was 75 larvae per liter, with a larval survival rate of 45%. During the survey and adaptation period, the survival rate in the hatcheries reached 80%. After a 150-day care period in the hatcheries, the fish reached fingerling size (2 g) and were subsequently stocked in two 16 m diameter cages located in Çeşme-İzmir (GPS location: 38°11'3.87"N 26°27'25.19"E). The fish were fed commercial diets with protein ratios ranging from 35–45% and fish oil ratios ranging from 20–30%, based on water temperature and the body weight of the fish in the cage environment. For the study, 200 European sea bass individuals that had reached market size were randomly selected from TÜMAY SEAFOOD Corp. Cage Farm. Four size groups were identified after harvest, and 25 random fish from each size group were sampled from each hatchery. Measurements including Body Depth (BD), Standard Length (SL), Head Length (HL), Body Length (BL), Pre-Anal Length (PAL), Abdominal Length (AL), Post-Anal Length (POSTAL), Head Depth (HD), Total Weight (TW), and Fillet Weight (FL) were recorded for each sample. Muscle tissue samples were stored in 96% ethanol at -20°C until DNA extraction. Genomic DNA was extracted using the GeneMATRIX Tissue & Bacterial DNA Purification Kit (EURx Ltd, Gdansk, Poland) following the manufacturer's protocol. The quality and quantity of DNA samples were assessed using 1% agarose gel electrophoresis and a spectrophotometer (MN-913 MaestroNano Micro-Volume Spectrophotometer, Maestrogen, Taiwan), respectively. Primer design and PCR amplification of the GH gene The European sea bass GH gene sequence was retrieved from GenBank (GenBank accession no. GQ918491) and primers were designed using the Primer-BLAST algorithm ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/tools/primer-blast/ ). The primer sequences of the GH gene are F: 5′-GTGATCAGTCGGGTTCAGGT-3′ and R: 5′-CGTTGTGTCTCGTGCTTGTC-3′. The PCR reactions (50 µL) containing 100 ng genomic DNA, 0.5 µM of each primer, and 2X MyTaq™ Mix (Meridian Bioscience, USA) were amplified using PCR temperature cycling conditions as initial denaturation at 95°C for 3 min, 35 cycles of denaturation at 95°C for 30 s, annealing at 60°C for 30 s, and elongation at 72°C for 60 s followed by a final extension at 72°C for 10 min. The PCR products were electrophoresed on 1.5% agarose gel using horizontal electrophoresis, and visualized using RedSafe™ (iNtRON Biotechnology, Korea) Sequencing A region of 576 bp covering 1st partial intron, 2nd exon, 2nd intron, and 3rd partial exon regions of the GH gene region was sequenced on Genetic Analyzer System (3500XL, Applied Biosystems, USA). The sequences were checked using ChromasPro Version 2.1.8 (Technelysium Pty. Ltd. Australia). The haplotype analysis was performed by the Haploview4.1 (Barrett et al. 2005). The nucleotide sequence of the GH gene region was translated using the Expasy resource portal ( https://web.expasy.org/translate/ ). The 3D tertiary structure of the proteins based on the GH gene region under study was predicted using the I-TASSER server (Yang et al. 2015 ). Statistical Analysis of the GH gene The SNP genotypes were tested for the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) using the Hardy–Weinberg in the R package (version R-3.4.3) (R Core Team 2013 ). The associations between genotypes, haplotypes, and growth traits were analyzed using the general linear model (GLM) (via SPSS Inc. V. 18.0, IBM, Chicago, IL, 2009). Linear Model I = Y jk = µ + G j + e jk Where Y ijk represents the traits, µ represents the intercept, G j represents the fixed effect of GH genotype or haplotypes (j = 1, 2 or 3 for each SNP or haplotype) and e ijk is the random error. The Bonferroni multiple range test was used to access the significance of differences between genotypes at each locus. The thresholds for significant and highly significant differences were P < 0.05 and P < 0.01, respectively. Results The European sea bass GH gene consists of 6 exons and 5 introns with a total length of 4015 bp and encodes 204 amino acids (GenBank accession no. GQ918491). The region under study is located between 1551 and 2126 bp in the GH gene sequence (Fig. 1 ). The genetic sequences of the partial region of the GH gene in the European sea bass were investigated in this study (Fig. 2 a; 2 b). All SNPs and the partial DNA sequences of the GH gene in sea bass are reported for the first time in this study. The sequences were submitted to the NCBI GenBank database (GenBank accession no. MN329680-5 and ON035500-12). The variations of the European sea bass GH gene identified in this study and their comparison with the reference sequence from NCBI GenBank are shown in Table 1 . In the studied European sea bass samples, nonsynonymous mutations were detected from serine to leucine (L24S) and from serine to threonine (S42T) in the second exon region (Fig. 3 ). In addition, 2 synonymous SNPs were observed in serine and phenylalanine amino acids in the second exon and leucine amino acids in the third exon region of the GH gene (Fig. 3 ). Table 1 The variations of nucleotides identified in the GH gene in European Sea Bass Position Reference Sequence* Studied Samples Region Amino acid change NCBI Accession Numbers 1557 A A/T/W 1.intron - MN329680, ON035502 1611 T T/C/Y 1.intron - ON035500, ON035501 1663 C C/G/S 1.intron - ON035503, ON035506 1684 T T/C/Y 1.intron - ON035504, ON035505 1769 C C/T/Y 1.intron - ON035507, ON035509 1799 T T/C/Y 2.exon Serine→Leucine ON035508, ON035510 1824 T T/C 2.exon Serine** MN329681, MN329683 1857 C C/T/Y 2.exon Phenylalanine** ON035511, ON035512 1912 T T/A 2.exon Serine→Threonine MN329682, MN329684 2052 G G/C 3.exon Leucine** MN329683, MN329685 *GQ918491 reference sequence, **Synonymous amino acid change The allele and genotype frequencies of the GH gene region under study in European sea bass samples are shown in Table 2 . Three SNPs (1824 T > C, 1912 T > A, and 2052 G > C) have been reported only in three animals, so the allele and genotype frequencies of these SNPs are not included in Table 2 . The GH gene g.1557A > T, g.1663C > G, g.1684T > C and g.1799T > C loci are in HWE, whereas the g.1611T > C, g.1769T > C and g.1857C > T loci are not in HWE. The genotype AA and GG were absent in the GH locus g.1557A > T and g.1663 C > G, respectively. Table 2 Allele and genotype frequencies of SNPs in GH gene in European sea bass Loci GH Genotypes Allele Frequency χ2 g.1557 A > T AA AT TT A T 0.13* Obs. - 190 10 0.98 0.02 Exp. 0.12 190.12 9.75 g.1611 T > C TT TC CC T C 125 Obs. 11 179 10 0.50 0.50 Exp. 50.50 100 49.50 g.1663 C > G CC CG GG C G 1.73* Obs. 166 34 - 0.92 0.08 Exp. 167.45 31.11 1.44 g.1684 T > C TT TC CC T C 0.02* Obs. 160 38 2 0.90 0.10 Exp. 160.20 37.59 2.21 g.1769 T > C Obs. 152 36 12 0.85 0.15 17.3 Exp. 144.5 51 45 g.1799 T > C Obs. 164 36 - 0.91 0.09 1.96* Exp. 165.62 32.76 1.62 g.1857 C > T Obs. 21 27 152 0.17 0.83 55.60 Exp. 5.95 58.00 136.95 *The locus is in HWE Associations between the GH genotype and growth traits The significant associations ( P < 0.05) between the GH loci genotypes and morphological traits were estimated and no significant associations with body depth, body length, postanal length, abdominal length, and head depth were observed (Table 3 ). However, we found significant correlations between total weight, filet weight, head length, preanal length, and standard length traits with the genotypes for g.1557 A > T, g.1611 T > C, g.1857 C > T loci ( P C were associated with total weight, filet weight, and head length ( P T were associated with the preanal length and abdominal length ( P T loci that caused the synonymous mutation in phenylalanine amino acid were found to be significantly associated with standard length ( P C 433.00 ± 25.45 b 438.50 ± 30.59 b 468.67 ± 12.22 a 0.040 FW g.1611 T > C 228.40 ± 16.87 b 229.63 ± 16.44 b 248.15 ± 6.52 a 0.041 HL g.1611 T > C 7.79 ± 0.32 b 7.89 ± 0.85 b 8.51 ± 0.44 a 0.016 PAL g.1557 A > T - 20.96 ± 0.21 b 21.60 ± 0.94 a 0.021 SL g.1857 C > T 31.86 ± 0.95 a 30.57 ± 0.79 ab 29.34 ± 0.27 b 0.006 Notes: *Values with different superscripts (a, b) within the same row differ significantly at P < 0.05. TW, total weight (g); FL, filet weight (g); HL, head length (cm); PAL, preanal length (cm); BL, body length (cm); SL, standard length (cm). In haplotype analysis, one main haplogroup was identified among the 7 SNPs in the GH gene. The haplotypes included g.1663 C > G, g.1684 T > C, g.1769 T > C, g.1799 T > C, and g.1857 C > T loci. The haplotype frequencies ranged from 0.015 to 0.825 among haplotypes 1–5 (Table 4 ). Table 4 The haplotype frequencies of the GH gene of European sea bass Haplotypes Allele combination Frequency (%) HAP1 CTTTT 0.825 HAP2 CTCTC 0.068 HAP3 GCCCC 0.060 HAP4 GCTCC 0.025 HAP5 CCCTC 0.015 Table 5 The associations of haplotypes of GH and growth traits in the European sea bass population (Mean ± SE) Traits HAP1 HAP2 HAP3 HAP4 HAP5 p* TW 452.20 ± 12.42 b 466.32 ± 63.54 b 567.03 ± 25.39 ab 720.00 ± 29.81 a 473.33 ± 98.99 b 0.002 FW 239.17 ± 6.61 b 246.32 ± 34.07 b 302.43 ± 11.21 ab 375.35 ± 11.29 a 251.86 ± 52.37 ab 0.002 HL 7.83 ± 0.08 b 7.93 ± 0.45 ab 8.39 ± 0.16 ab 9.52 ± 0.92 a 8.61 ± 0.97 ab 0.008 PAL 20.97 ± 0.01 b 21.05 ± 0.06 ab 21.12 ± 0.08 a 21.09 ± 0.13 ab 20.96 ± 0.00 ab 0.002 POSTAL 9.21 ± 0.09 ab 8.98 ± 0.33 b 9.61 ± 0.23 ab 10.63 ± 0.24 a 9.32 ± 0.54 ab 0.047 BD 7.41 ± 0.08 b 7.59 ± 0.38 b 8.44 ± 0.16 ab 9.23 ± 0.09 a 8.17 ± 0.58 ab 0.000 SL 29.26 ± 0.25 b 30.64 ± 1.23 b 32.68 ± 1.16 ab 36.12 ± 1.92 a 32.50 ± 2.29 ab 0.000 Notes: *Values with different superscripts (a, b) within the same row differ significantly at p < 0.05. TW (g), total weight (g); FW, filet weight (g); SL, standard length (cm); HL, head length (cm); PAL, preanal length (cm); POSTAL, postanal length (cm); BD, body depth (cm). The haplotype analysis revealed haplotypes of the GH gene had significant associations with growth traits ( SL, HL, PAL, POSTAL, BD, TW , and FW ) ( p < 0.05) (Table 5 ). HAP4 (GCTCC) has a significantly higher value of growth traits than the other haplotypes in the studied European sea bass samples. In silico protein analyses The ESPript program played a crucial role as a bioinformatics tool for unraveling the essential characteristics within protein structures (Robert and Gouet 2014 ). This investigation focused on the amino acid sequences corresponding to the second and third exons, and this was 81 aa in length. In this study, the alignment of amino acid sequence of the partial GH protein (81 aa) was performed by Clustal Omega, displayed by ESPript program using 3D protein structure of a GH protein (UniProt ID: Q05163) to determine the position and location of amino acid substitutions. The analysis result showed that it was identified the differences existed at two locations between the reference and our partial protein: S24L and S42T. S24L and S42T were found in α1 helix, including H34, a zinc-binding residue (Fig. 3 ). DeepMSA2 (Deep Multiple Sequence Alignment 2) functioned as a tool for creating multiple sequence alignments (MSA) for both single- and multichain proteins. It enabled the development of MSAs by incorporating homologous sequences obtained from genomic and metagenome sequence databases (Zhang et al. 2020 ; Zheng et al. 2024 ). In this investigation, The DeepMSA2 (Deep Multiple Sequence Alignment 2) pipeline was employed to align the partial GH protein with homologous growth hormones from the Uniclust30, Uniref90, BFD, MGnify, and IMG/M databases (reference). In this examination, the alignment depth (Nf) and for the amino acid sequences of GH was determined as 47.4809, respectively, while the total number of aligned sequences was 1093. The findings indicated substantial conservation of five residues (L22, E23, E44, C65 and P73) across all aligned sequences. Among these, three residues (L22, C65 and P73) were also conserved in GH; however, the corresponding residues E23 and E44 were found as F23 and F44, different from most of the aligned sequences. In addition, zinc-binding residue can be predominantly four amino acids (H, Y, S, N) in the position 34 along 1093 homologous sequences (Fig. 4 ). The partial GH protein and the remaining part to form the full-length protein was combined by using the reference GH protein and 3D model of this protein was built by The SWISS-MODEL homology modeling online server (Fig. 5 ). The selection of the optimal template took into account factors such as the percentage of amino acid sequence identity, coverage, and the Global Model Quality Estimate (GMQE) value. The most suitable template identified was the somatotropin alphafold model (UNIPROT ID: Q9I9M4.1.A) derived from large yellow croaker ( Larimichthys crocea ). The homology modeling process revealed a 86.27% amino acid sequence identity for GH protein. The high GMQE score of 0.80 indicated the superior quality of the predicted GH model. The 3D model comprised six α-helices (α1-α6) and two short helices (ƞ1 and ƞ2). Discussion It has been investigated a 576 bp long region of the GH gene covering 1st partial intron, 2nd exon, 2nd intron, and 3rd partial. The GH gene of European sea bass populations contained 5 SNPs in the first intron, 4 SNPs in the second exon, and an SNP in the third exon region. Two SNPs, g.1557 A > T and g.1611 T>, located in the first intron region were found associated with TW, FW, HL, and PAL traits. Introns, particularly the first ones, are essential for accurately localizing specific mRNAs within the cytoplasm, encompassing functions related to mRNA export (Jo and Choi 2015 ). Intergenic regions can accumulate more gene mutations in comparison to exons due to their longer length (Zhang et al. 2016 ). Although intronic regions do not code for proteins, they play a regulatory role in mRNA splicing, gene transcription, translation and expression (Pagani and Baralle 2004 ; Hull et al. 2007 ; Sun et al. 2019 ). The SNPs in noncoding regions can modulate gene expression and hence regulate various properties such as growth, disease resistance etc. (Kuhl et al. 2010 ; Özcan-Gökçek et al. 2020 ; Özcan-Gökçek and Işık 2020 ; Zhang et al. 2021 ; Zepeda-Batista et al. 2021 ). In studies conducted on the genome wide association, it has been reported that disease or a trait-associated SNPs are more frequently found in intronic regions (Li et al. 2012 ; Welter et al. 2014 ; Jo and Choi 2015 ). Early-stage growth in Salvelinus alpicus was significantly affected by the SNP in the intragenic region of the Growth Hormone Releasing Hormone ( GHRH ) locus, which regulates growth hormone secretion (Tao and Boulding 2003 ). It has been detected 5 SNPs, g.1799 T > C, 1824 T > C, g.1857 C > T, 1912 T > A, and 2052 G > C, in the second and third exons of the GH gene. The SNP g.1857 C > T (present in the second exon of the GH gene) caused a synonymous mutation in phenylalanine amino acid and was revealed to be associated with SL ( P C and g.5234T > G) in the 5th exon and 5th intron regions of the GH gene to be associated with growth performance in the Sniperca chuatsi population ( P < 0.05). Three SNPs detected in the GH gene in yellow catfish ( Pelteobagrus fulvidraco ) were significantly associated with yield characteristics such as body thickness, caudal pedicle length, and BL (Li et al. 2017 ). The administration of GH in transgenic Atlantic salmon ( Salmo salar ) was reported to affect the proliferative response in terms of faster growth and more myogenic progenitor cell proliferation (Levesque et al. 2008). Similarly, Tian et al. ( 2014 ) reported that the 4 SNPs in the GH gene, with 2 of these SNPs located in the 4nd exon and the others in the 5th exon and 5th inton, have been observed. They have suggested that these polymorphisms are significantly associated with growth traits and could be used for MAS in Siniperca chuatsi populations. In a study, a total of 4 polymorphic SNPs out of 32 SNPs (one in the fifth exon and 31 in intronic regions) in the Siniperca chuatsi GH gene were found to be significantly associated with economically important growth characteristics (Sun et al. 2019 ). Hu et al. ( 2019 ) found an SNP and 4-bp indel in the third intron and 3 synonymous SNPs in exon 4 in the GH gene of common carp. Liu et al. ( 2017 ) found SNPs in the third exon and intron of the GH gene to be associated with the growth traits in common carp in Southern China. The SNPs in introns, promotors, and 5′UTR regions of the GH gene have an important effect on growth traits. Jaser et al. ( 2017 ) identified 10 SNPs, 9 in the proximal promoter region and one in the 5′UTR region of the Nile tilapia ( Oreochromis niloticus ) GH gene, and reported that 5 genotypes of these SNPs were associated with the highest market weight. The haplotypes showed significant associations with some measured growth traits of European sea bass in this study. HAP4 showed greater TW and FW traits than the other haplotypes ( p < 0.05). HAP1 was the most common haplotype (82%) which could be due to its presence in the ancestral gene and other haplotypes emerged because of mutations in the evolutionary process. On the other hand, it was found that HAP1 was significantly lower than the other haplotypes for the TW, FW, HL, PAL, BD, and SL traits of European sea bass. The filet weight is an important trait for the profitable production of European sea bass (Sánchez et al. 2022; Özcan-Gökçek et al. 2023 ). Similar to our results, Hu et al. ( 2019 ) identified 4 haplotypes and 10 diplotypes in Heilongjiang carp ( Cyprinus carpio haematopterus) , German mirror carp ( Cyprinus carpio L. mirror ), and Purse red carp ( Cyprinus carpio var. wuyuanensis) breeds in China. They showed that the H2H2 diplotype fish have significantly higher body weight and net weight than the other diplotypes in the Heilongjiang carp breed. Sun et al. ( 2019 ) found one of the 4 diplotypes detected in the Siniperca chuatsi GH gene was significantly associated with higher body weight, total length, and BL. Similar observations were recorded in another study by Hu et al. ( 2019 ). In the human GH gene, 16 SNPs were described for 36 different promoter haplotypes were evaluated and some haplotypes were correlated with significantly reduced levels of reporter gene expression that some of these SNPs were identified as major determinants of the GH1 gene expression level (Horan et al. 2003). Similar to these results, Jaser et al. ( 2017 ) reported that SNPs significantly related to the growth rate in Nile tilapia may be interdependent and related to the levels of GH expression during the growth phase. The 3D structure of a protein depends on the sequence of amino acids and a mutation can change the structure of the native proteins (Agnihotry et al. 2022 ). In this study, 2 nonsynonymous (S24L and S42T) amino acid substitutions were observed in the native GH protein, based on reference gene (GeneBank ID: GQ918491). The S24L mutation could affect the 3D structure of GH because leucine is a relatively large and nonpolar amino acid, whereas serine is a smaller and more polar amino acid (Probst et al. 2013 ). This may affect the folding structure, thereby efficiency and stability of the protein. Amino acids, especially Leucine (Leu), play a dual role – not only as substrates for the synthesis of new proteins but also as signaling molecules that initiate the process of protein synthesis (Atherton et al. 2010 ; Columbus et al. 2014 ; Duan et al. 2016 ; Sürmeli et al. 2019 ; Sürmeli and Şanlı-Mohamed 2022 ). Mutations in exons are generally harmful and eliminated by selection (Dukler et al. 2022 ). The GH is a major hormone controlling growth and metamorphosis in fish larvae (McMenamin and Parichy 2013 ; Wang et al. 2013 ). Therefore, the S24L mutation may be eliminated from the population in the next generations. Because in S24L, we found 2 genotypes, predominantly homozygote, and low-frequency heterozygote. We recommend to eliminate the CC genotype from the population due to its deletirousor potentially lethal effect on the protein structure. Conclusions Genetic variations in the GH gene in European sea bass populations reared in Mediterranean conditions were investigated in this study. We detected 10 SNPs in the intron and exon regions of the GH gene. Based on the outcomes of this study, we suggest HAP4 should be used as a potential marker to improve the accuracy of selection in European sea bass in Mediterranean conditions due to its positive association with body weight and length traits. The association of these SNPs with growth traits needs to be investigated further. In addition, the association of the reported SNPs with other traits of economic importance (meat quality and reproduction traits) and their interactions with other genes should be studied. These SNPs have the potential to be used for marker-assisted selection in European sea bass breeding. Declarations Author Contributions Emel Özcan-Gökçek and Raziye Işık developed the research topic and acted as study principal investigator (PI). Emel Özcan-Gökçek, Bilge Karahan and Kutsal Gamsız collected phenotypic data and sampling. Emel Özcan-Gökçek obtained, analyzed genetic data. Emel Özcan-Gökçek, Raziye Işık and Yusuf Sürmeli performed statistical analysis and wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Funding: This work was supported by the Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit of the Ege University (Project No: FKP-2020-21912). Acknowledgement: We are grateful to Ege University Planning and Monitoring Coordination of Organizational Development and Directorate of Library and Documentation for their support in editing and proofreading service of this study. The authors would like to express their thanks to Research Square for incorporating the showcased study into the pre-publication preview, contributing to its visibility in the international literature. Data Availability: The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. Code Availability: Not applicable. Ethics Approval: Animal handling procedures adhered to the guidelines established by the University of Ege Animal Ethics Committee. Consent Participates: Not applicable. Consent for Publication: All authors reviewed and approved the manuscript for publication. Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest to disclose. References Agnihotry S, Pathak RK, Singh DB, Tiwari A, Hussain I (2022) Protein structure prediction. Editor(s): Dev Bukhsh Singh, Rajesh Kumar Pathak, Bioinformatics. Academic Press Elsevier, London pp, pp 177–188 Ashton DT, Ritchie PA, Wellenreuther M (2019) High-density linkage map and QTLs for growth in snapper ( Chrysophrys auratus ). G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics 9(4): 1027–1035 Atherton PJ, Smith K, Etheridge T, Rankin D, Rennie MJ (2010) Distinct anabolic signalling responses to amino acids in C2C12 skeletal muscle cells. 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Nat Rev Genet 5(5):389–396 Probst FJ, Corrigan RR, Del Gaudio D, Salinger AP, Lorenzo I, Gao SS, Chiu I, Xia A, Oghalai JS, Justice MJ (2013) A point mutation in the gene for asparagine-linked glycosylation 10B (Alg10b) causes nonsyndromic hearing impairment in mice (Mus musculus). PLoS ONE 26(11):e80408 R Core Team (2013) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Vienna, Austria. URL http://www.R-project.org/ Robert X, Gouet P (2014) Deciphering key features in protein structures with the new ENDscript server. Nucleic Acids Res 42(W1):W320–W324 Sawayama E, Takagi M (2015) Isolation and characterization of tandem repeat sequences in the growth hormone gene of the red seabream, Pagrus major (Temminck & Schlegel, 1843). J App Ichthyol 31(4):762–766 Sun CF, Sun HL, Dong JJ, Tian YY, Hu J, Ye X (2019) Correlation analysis of mandarin fish ( Siniperca chuatsi ) growth hormone gene polymorphisms and growth traits. 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Comp Biochem Physiol B Biochem Mol Biol 153(1):130–135 Vélez EJ, Lutfi E, Azizi S, Perelló M, Salmerón C, Riera-Codina MA, Ibarz J, Fernández-Borràs J, Blasco E, Capilla I, Navarro (2017) Gutiérrez J Understanding fish muscle growth regulation to optimize aquaculture production. Aquaculture 467: 28–40 Wang H, Sun J, Lu X, Wang P, Xu P, Zeng L, Yu D, Li G (2013) Identification of insulin-like growth factor I gene polymorphisms using high-resolution melting and its effect on growth traits in sinipercid species. Fish Sci 79:439–446 Wang H, Sun J, Wang P, Lu X, Xu P, Gu Y, Li G (2015) Identification of the Growth Hormone Gene Polymorphisms Using High-resolution Melting, and the Correlation with Growth Traits in Cross-sinipercid Species. Isr J Aquac 67 Welter D, MacArthur J, Morales J, Burdett T, Hall P, Junkins H, Klemm A, Flicek P, Manolio T, Hindorff L, Parkinson H (2014) The NHGRI GWAS Catalog, a curated resource of SNP-trait associations. Nucleic Acids Res 42(D1):D1001–D1006 Yang J, Yan R, Roy A, Xu D, Poisson J, Zhang Y (2015) The I-TASSER Suite: protein structure and function prediction. Nat Methods 12:7–8 Zepeda-Batista JL, Núñez-Domínguez R, Ramírez-Valverde R, Jahuey-Martínez FJ, Herrera-Ojeda JB, Parra-Bracamonte GM (2021) Discovering of genomic variations associated to growth traits by GWAS in Braunvieh cattle. Genes 12(11):1666 Zhang L, Li Y, Wu M, Ouyang H, Shi R (2021) The SNP polymorphisms associated with WSSV-resistance of prophenoloxidase in red swamp crayfish ( Procambarus clarkii ) and its immune response against white spot syndrome virus (WSSV). Aquaculture 530:735787 Zhang S, Zhong L, Qin Q, Wang M, Pan J, Chen X, Bian W (2016) Three SNPs polymorphism of growth hormone-releasing hormone gene ( GHRH ) and association analysis with growth traits in channel catfish. Acta Microbiol Sin 40(5):886–893 Zhao J, He, Wen H, Li J, Si Y (2014) Correlation between the polymorphism of GH gene of male half-smooth tongue sole and their growth traits and hormone content. Period Ocean Univ China 44:35–40 Zheng W, Wuyun Q, Li Y, Zhang C, Freddolino PL, Zhang Y (2024) Improving deep learning protein monomer and complex structure prediction using DeepMSA2 with huge metagenomics data. Nat Methods 1–11 Zhou C, Ge X, Niu J, Lin H, Huang Z, Tan X (2015) Effect of dietary carbohydrate levels on growth performance, body composition, intestinal and hepatic enzyme activities, and growth hormone gene expression of juvenile golden pompano, Trachinotus ovatus . Aquaculture 437:390–397 Zhu Z, He L, Chen S (1985) Novel gene transfer into the fertilized eggs of gold fish ( Carassius auratus L. 1758). J Appl Ichthyol 1(1):31–34 Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-3911408","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":275931586,"identity":"d9bb884c-9d0c-4a0a-81d5-fb0026874572","order_by":0,"name":"Emel Özcan-Gökçek","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"","institution":"Ege University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Emel","middleName":"","lastName":"Özcan-Gökçek","suffix":""},{"id":275931587,"identity":"15dfe859-a615-44c6-a981-b4c6a1a9bcde","order_by":1,"name":"Raziye Işık","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Tekirdağ Namık Kemal University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Raziye","middleName":"","lastName":"Işık","suffix":""},{"id":275931588,"identity":"53ce4129-4fbb-4276-ac6c-c861c433b69f","order_by":2,"name":"Bilge Karahan","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Ege University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Bilge","middleName":"","lastName":"Karahan","suffix":""},{"id":275931589,"identity":"1472534f-2066-4bde-b907-cc51a1e51eb5","order_by":3,"name":"Kutsal Gamsız","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Ege University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Kutsal","middleName":"","lastName":"Gamsız","suffix":""},{"id":275931590,"identity":"5143f237-1839-4b25-95e5-88d4df04de4c","order_by":4,"name":"Yusuf Sürmeli","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Tekirdağ Namık Kemal University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Yusuf","middleName":"","lastName":"Sürmeli","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-01-30 18:14:12","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-3911408/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3911408/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":52036235,"identity":"421b2df4-2585-497e-bae8-966f5de341a9","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-03-05 17:06:48","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":39410,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eThe amplified region of \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-3911408/v1/05d3cbaa4736de9d812f860f.png"},{"id":52036236,"identity":"d9a99ec0-d904-46ef-9b14-bd2d3a19eb5c","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-03-05 17:06:48","extension":"jpeg","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":432618,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003epartial sequence of \u003cem\u003ethe GH\u003c/em\u003e gene a) g. g.1684T\u0026gt;C b) g.1799T\u0026gt;C polymorphisms (showing reverse complement)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage2.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-3911408/v1/2f336ef35ff60d8df47eb302.jpeg"},{"id":52036237,"identity":"bbd4b546-7051-4c2f-be15-ed4195ec9dd9","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-03-05 17:06:48","extension":"jpeg","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":136742,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eThe partial GH protein (query), the reference protein sequence (GeneBank ID: GQ918491), and GH from \u003cem\u003eDicentrarchus labrax\u003c/em\u003e (UniProt ID: Q05163) underwent multiple sequence alignment. In the figure, residues strictly conserved are highlighted with a red background, and conservatively substituted residues are enclosed within boxes. The aligned sequences of Q05163 provided insights into the secondary structural elements, including α-helices (α) and short helices (ƞ) indicated above them. The binding site was marked with green asterisks. ESPript was used to generate the figure.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage3.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-3911408/v1/4850cf9517a741770b4ed1f8.jpeg"},{"id":52036234,"identity":"0a0b1a06-f1a2-4b21-81f3-eaefc25b67c8","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-03-05 17:06:48","extension":"jpeg","order_by":4,"title":"Figure 4","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":51474,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eDeep multiple sequence alignment (DeepMSA2) of the partial GH protein\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage4.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-3911408/v1/f1518ec7900618dd72d7d7b2.jpeg"},{"id":52036238,"identity":"34f0a2a1-db02-455b-9ca2-f9c1e260c1e1","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-03-05 17:06:49","extension":"jpeg","order_by":5,"title":"Figure 5","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":213479,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e3D model of the full-length protein combining partial GH protein with the reference GH protein. Two spheres represents the disulfide bonds.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage5.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-3911408/v1/22faaf4dbb55a8c48c4b11b0.jpeg"},{"id":52092833,"identity":"cd23e5f5-e3dc-4f14-9e2d-046bca18648e","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-03-06 14:49:30","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":660172,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-3911408/v1/2f6dbda0-8ecc-4875-a5ee-66e6fbc806a3.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"In Silico Protein Investigation and Correlation Analysis of Growth Hormone Gene and Growth Traits in European Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus labrax)","fulltext":[{"header":"Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene has a wide range of effects on different aspects of fish biology, including appetite, reproduction, and immune function in vertebrates (Clayton et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e; Wang et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR51\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Growth is a multifaceted biological process influenced by factors like nutrition, consumption, and physiological functions, primarily controlled by the HPS axis involving pitutuary growth hormone (GH) secretion and hepatic/extra-hepatic insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) (V\u0026eacute;lez et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR49\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Teng et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR44\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Triantaphyllopoulos et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). GH, binds to receptors in target organs, triggering the release of igf 1 and initiating a process that regulates the metabolism of proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates in fish cells (McCormick \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2001\u003c/span\u003e; Cheng and Sun \u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Bi et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Nisembaum et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Ibrahim et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e), as well as influencing food conservation and fasting metabolism (McMenamin and Parichy \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e; Wang et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR50\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e). \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene serving as the primary controller of postnatal somatic growth, has been shown to have a significant role in promoting anabolic processes like cell division and protein synthesis (Ma et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). Besides this gene regulates metamorphosis in fish larvae, and osmoregulation against rapid salinity and temprature changes (McCormick \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2001\u003c/span\u003e; Vargas-Chacoff et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR48\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; Clayton et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e; Bi et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; \u0026Ouml;zcan-G\u0026ouml;k\u0026ccedil;ek and Işık \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). The positive growth response to growth trials in aquaculture species such as coho salmon (\u003cem\u003eOncorhynchus kisutch\u003c/em\u003e) (Barrett and McKeown \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1988\u003c/span\u003e), juvenile golden pompano (\u003cem\u003eTrachinotus ovatus\u003c/em\u003e) (Zhou et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR59\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e), and gilthead sea bream (\u003cem\u003eSparus aurata\u003c/em\u003e) has been reported to be strongly associated with molecular markers of growth hormone (GH), insulin-like growth factors (IGFs), IGF binding protein-5 (IGFBP-5) (V\u0026eacute;lez et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR49\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). All of these studies indicate that GH plays a vital role in the somatic growth and survival of fish in all life stages.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAquaculture production has become one of the most demanded product categories in the food sector due to increased population growth, decreased natural fish stocks, and consumer preferences. The growth and product quality of the species concerned must be improved for the sustainability of aquaculture under these conditions. (V\u0026eacute;lez et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR49\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). The European sea bass (\u003cem\u003eDicentrarchus labrax\u003c/em\u003e, Linnaeus 1758), belonging to the Moronidae (Perciformes) family, is an economically significant aquaculture species. It plays a crucial role in the profitability and sustainability of the aquaculture industry in the Mediterranean region. The global production of European sea bass reached approximately 299,810 tons in 2021 (FAO \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). Mediterranean countries play a significant role in leading production as T\u0026uuml;rkiye, Greece, Egypt, and Spain. European sea bass can achieve a size of 250\u0026ndash;400 g in 18\u0026ndash;24 months (Vandeputte et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR47\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). The factors that play a crucial role in influencing the productivity of sea bass aquaculture include growth, feed efficiency, mortality rate, and diseases (Kousoulaki et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Muniesa et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIncreasing the meat yield while shortening the long growing period in fish such as sea bass is a foremost issue of fish breeding (De-Santis and Jerry \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e). The \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene has been reported as a candidate gene in studies of genetic variation associated with growth traits in farm animals and aquaculture species. The first gene transfer studies in goldfish (\u003cem\u003eCarrasius aurata\u003c/em\u003e) utilized the \u003cem\u003erGH\u003c/em\u003e gene (Zhu et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR60\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1985\u003c/span\u003e). The transgenic \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e genes could significantly increase the growth rate in more than 30 fish species due to the conserved regulatory functions of GH in somatic growth (Li et al. 2010). Therefore, it is important to identify the genome-wide genes in fish that are associated with growth and meat traits. Various studies have been carried out on the relationship between \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene polymorphisms and growth traits in fish species such as \u003cem\u003eSalvelinus alpinus\u003c/em\u003e (Tao and Boulding \u003cspan citationid=\"CR43\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e), \u003cem\u003eCynoglossus semilaevis\u003c/em\u003e (Zhao et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR57\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e), red sea bream (\u003cem\u003ePagrus major\u003c/em\u003e) (Sawayama and Takagi \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e), (\u003cem\u003ePelteobagrus fulvidraco\u003c/em\u003e (Li et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e), \u003cem\u003eOreochromis niloticus\u003c/em\u003e (Jaser et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Dias et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e), \u003cem\u003eCyprinus carpio\u003c/em\u003e (Liu et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Hu et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e), snapper (\u003cem\u003eChrysophrys auratus\u003c/em\u003e) (Ashton et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e) and \u003cem\u003eSiniperca chuatsi\u003c/em\u003e (Li et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e, Sun et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe primary aim of the study was to explore potential polymorphisms and associations between these identified polymorphisms and various growth traits in the European sea bass. The second objective of the study is to determine whether the identified amino acid changes induce any alterations in the three-dimensional (3D) structure of proteins.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Materials and Methods","content":"\u003cp\u003eSampling and DNA isolation\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e The sampling, carried out post-harvest, did not necessitate ethical approval at this phase, as it was not specifically mandated by the Ege University Animal Ethics Committee. Fish larvae of similar age were reared and managed under comparable conditions in two commercial hatcheries. The larvae were produced through mass spawning in a single day, utilizing two broodstock tanks with 15 males and 15 females stocked in each hatchery, all within commercial settings. The stocking density of larvae was 75 larvae per liter, with a larval survival rate of 45%. During the survey and adaptation period, the survival rate in the hatcheries reached 80%. After a 150-day care period in the hatcheries, the fish reached fingerling size (2 g) and were subsequently stocked in two 16 m diameter cages located in \u0026Ccedil;eşme-İzmir (GPS location: 38\u0026deg;11'3.87\"N 26\u0026deg;27'25.19\"E). The fish were fed commercial diets with protein ratios ranging from 35\u0026ndash;45% and fish oil ratios ranging from 20\u0026ndash;30%, based on water temperature and the body weight of the fish in the cage environment.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFor the study, 200 European sea bass individuals that had reached market size were randomly selected from T\u0026Uuml;MAY SEAFOOD Corp. Cage Farm. Four size groups were identified after harvest, and 25 random fish from each size group were sampled from each hatchery. Measurements including Body Depth (BD), Standard Length (SL), Head Length (HL), Body Length (BL), Pre-Anal Length (PAL), Abdominal Length (AL), Post-Anal Length (POSTAL), Head Depth (HD), Total Weight (TW), and Fillet Weight (FL) were recorded for each sample. Muscle tissue samples were stored in 96% ethanol at -20\u0026deg;C until DNA extraction. Genomic DNA was extracted using the GeneMATRIX Tissue \u0026amp; Bacterial DNA Purification Kit (EURx Ltd, Gdansk, Poland) following the manufacturer's protocol. The quality and quantity of DNA samples were assessed using 1% agarose gel electrophoresis and a spectrophotometer (MN-913 MaestroNano Micro-Volume Spectrophotometer, Maestrogen, Taiwan), respectively.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePrimer design and PCR amplification of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe European sea bass GH gene sequence was retrieved from GenBank (GenBank accession no. GQ918491) and primers were designed using the Primer-BLAST algorithm (\u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/tools/primer-blast/\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/tools/primer-blast/\" targettype=\"URL\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e). The primer sequences of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene are F: 5\u0026prime;-GTGATCAGTCGGGTTCAGGT-3\u0026prime; and R: 5\u0026prime;-CGTTGTGTCTCGTGCTTGTC-3\u0026prime;. The PCR reactions (50 \u0026micro;L) containing 100 ng genomic DNA, 0.5 \u0026micro;M of each primer, and 2X MyTaq\u0026trade; Mix (Meridian Bioscience, USA) were amplified using PCR temperature cycling conditions as initial denaturation at 95\u0026deg;C for 3 min, 35 cycles of denaturation at 95\u0026deg;C for 30 s, annealing at 60\u0026deg;C for 30 s, and elongation at 72\u0026deg;C for 60 s followed by a final extension at 72\u0026deg;C for 10 min. The PCR products were electrophoresed on 1.5% agarose gel using horizontal electrophoresis, and visualized using RedSafe\u0026trade; (iNtRON Biotechnology, Korea)\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSequencing\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA region of 576 bp covering 1st partial intron, 2nd exon, 2nd intron, and 3rd partial exon regions of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene region was sequenced on Genetic Analyzer System (3500XL, Applied Biosystems, USA). The sequences were checked using ChromasPro Version 2.1.8 (Technelysium Pty. Ltd. Australia). The haplotype analysis was performed by the Haploview4.1 (Barrett et al. 2005). The nucleotide sequence of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene region was translated using the Expasy resource portal (\u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://web.expasy.org/translate/\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"https://web.expasy.org/translate/\" targettype=\"URL\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e). The 3D tertiary structure of the proteins based on the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene region under study was predicted using the I-TASSER server (Yang et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eStatistical Analysis of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe SNP genotypes were tested for the Hardy\u0026ndash;Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) using the Hardy\u0026ndash;Weinberg in the R package (version R-3.4.3) (R Core Team \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e). The associations between genotypes, haplotypes, and growth traits were analyzed using the general linear model (GLM) (via SPSS Inc. V. 18.0, IBM, Chicago, IL, 2009).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eLinear Model I\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;Y\u003csub\u003ejk\u003c/sub\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;\u0026micro;\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;G\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e + \u003cem\u003ee\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003ejk\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhere Y\u003csub\u003eijk\u003c/sub\u003e represents the traits, \u0026micro; represents the intercept, G\u003csub\u003ej\u003c/sub\u003e represents the fixed effect of \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e genotype or haplotypes (j\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1, 2 or 3 for each SNP or haplotype) and \u003cem\u003ee\u003c/em\u003e\u003csub\u003e\u003cem\u003eijk\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/sub\u003e is the random error.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Bonferroni multiple range test was used to access the significance of differences between genotypes at each locus. The thresholds for significant and highly significant differences were \u003cem\u003eP\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05 and \u003cem\u003eP\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.01, respectively.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe European sea bass \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene consists of 6 exons and 5 introns with a total length of 4015 bp and encodes 204 amino acids (GenBank accession no. GQ918491). The region under study is located between 1551 and 2126 bp in the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene sequence (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e). The genetic sequences of the partial region of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene in the European sea bass were investigated in this study (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003ea; \u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003eb). All SNPs and the partial DNA sequences of \u003cem\u003ethe GH\u003c/em\u003e gene in sea bass are reported for the first time in this study. The sequences were submitted to the NCBI GenBank database (GenBank accession no. MN329680-5 and ON035500-12).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe variations of the European sea bass \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene identified in this study and their comparison with the reference sequence from NCBI GenBank are shown in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e. In the studied European sea bass samples, nonsynonymous mutations were detected from serine to leucine (L24S) and from serine to threonine (S42T) in the second exon region (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e). In addition, 2 synonymous SNPs were observed in serine and phenylalanine amino acids in the second exon and leucine amino acids in the third exon region of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab1\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe variations of nucleotides identified in the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene in European Sea Bass\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"6\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePosition\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eReference Sequence*\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eStudied Samples\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eRegion\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eAmino acid change\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eNCBI Accession Numbers\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1557\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eA\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eA/T/W\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.intron\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMN329680, ON035502\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1611\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eT\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eT/C/Y\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.intron\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eON035500, ON035501\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1663\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eC\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eC/G/S\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.intron\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eON035503, ON035506\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1684\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eT\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eT/C/Y\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.intron\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eON035504, ON035505\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1769\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eC\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eC/T/Y\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.intron\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eON035507, ON035509\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1799\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eT\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eT/C/Y\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.exon\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSerine\u0026rarr;Leucine\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eON035508, ON035510\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1824\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eT\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eT/C\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.exon\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSerine**\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMN329681, MN329683\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1857\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eC\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eC/T/Y\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.exon\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePhenylalanine**\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eON035511, ON035512\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1912\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eT\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eT/A\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.exon\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSerine\u0026rarr;Threonine\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMN329682, MN329684\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2052\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eG\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eG/C\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.exon\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eLeucine**\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMN329683, MN329685\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003ctfoot\u003e \u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd colspan=\"6\"\u003e*GQ918491 reference sequence, **Synonymous amino acid change\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tfoot\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe allele and genotype frequencies of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene region under study in European sea bass samples are shown in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e. Three SNPs (1824 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C, 1912 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;A, and 2052 G\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C) have been reported only in three animals, so the allele and genotype frequencies of these SNPs are not included in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e. The \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene g.1557A\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T, g.1663C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;G, g.1684T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C and g.1799T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C loci are in HWE, whereas the g.1611T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C, g.1769T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C and g.1857C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T loci are not in HWE. The genotype AA and GG were absent in \u003cem\u003ethe GH\u003c/em\u003e locus g.1557A\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T and g.1663 C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;G, respectively.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab2\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 2\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eAllele and genotype frequencies of SNPs in \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene in European sea bass\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"8\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c7\" colnum=\"7\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c8\" colnum=\"8\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eLoci\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"4\" nameend=\"c5\" namest=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e Genotypes\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c7\" namest=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eAllele Frequency\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eχ2\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"2\" rowspan=\"3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eg.1557 A\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAA\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAT\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTT\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eT\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\" morerows=\"2\" rowspan=\"3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.13*\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eObs.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e190\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e10\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.98\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eExp.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.12\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e190.12\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e9.75\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"2\" rowspan=\"3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eg.1611 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTT\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTC\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCC\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eT\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eC\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\" morerows=\"2\" rowspan=\"3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e125\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eObs.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e11\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e179\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e10\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.50\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.50\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eExp.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e50.50\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e100\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e49.50\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"2\" rowspan=\"3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eg.1663 C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;G\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCC\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCG\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eGG\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eC\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eG\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\" morerows=\"2\" rowspan=\"3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.73*\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eObs.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e166\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e34\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.92\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.08\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eExp.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e167.45\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e31.11\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.44\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"2\" rowspan=\"3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eg.1684 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTT\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTC\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCC\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eT\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eC\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\" morerows=\"2\" rowspan=\"3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.02*\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eObs.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e160\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e38\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.90\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.10\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eExp.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e160.20\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e37.59\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.21\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eg.1769 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eObs.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e152\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e36\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e12\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.85\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.15\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e17.3\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eExp.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e144.5\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e51\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e45\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eg.1799 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eObs.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e164\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e36\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.91\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.09\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.96*\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eExp.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e165.62\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e32.76\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.62\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eg.1857 C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eObs.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e21\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e27\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e152\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.17\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.83\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e55.60\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eExp.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e5.95\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e58.00\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e136.95\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003ctfoot\u003e \u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd colspan=\"8\"\u003e*The locus is in HWE\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tfoot\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAssociations between \u003cem\u003ethe GH\u003c/em\u003e genotype and growth traits\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe significant associations (\u003cem\u003eP\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05) between the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e loci genotypes and morphological traits were estimated and no significant associations with body depth, body length, postanal length, abdominal length, and head depth were observed (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e). However, we found significant correlations between total weight, filet weight, head length, preanal length, and standard length traits with the genotypes for g.1557 A\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T, g.1611 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C, g.1857 C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T loci (\u003cem\u003eP\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). The genotypes for g.1611 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C were associated with total weight, filet weight, and head length (\u003cem\u003eP\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). Also, the genotypes for g.1557 A\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T were associated with the preanal length and abdominal length (\u003cem\u003eP\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). The genotypes of g.1857 C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T loci that caused the synonymous mutation in phenylalanine amino acid were found to be significantly associated with standard length (\u003cem\u003eP\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab3\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 3\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe relationships between the genotypes of \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e loci and the growth traits in European sea bass (Mean\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;SE).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"6\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTraits\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSNP\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCC/AA\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTC/TA/CG\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTT/GG\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ep value\u003c/em\u003e*\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTW\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eg.1611 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e433.00\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;25.45\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e438.50\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;30.59\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e468.67\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;12.22\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.040\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eFW\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eg.1611 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e228.40\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;16.87\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e229.63\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;16.44\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e248.15\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;6.52\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.041\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHL\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eg.1611 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e7.79\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.32\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e7.89\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.85\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e8.51\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.44\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.016\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePAL\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eg.1557 A\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e20.96\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.21\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e21.60\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.94\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.021\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSL\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eg.1857 C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e31.86\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.95\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e30.57\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.79\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e29.34\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.27\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.006\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003ctfoot\u003e \u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd colspan=\"6\"\u003eNotes: *Values with different superscripts (a, b) within the same row differ significantly at \u003cem\u003eP\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05. TW, total weight (g); FL, filet weight (g); HL, head length (cm); PAL, preanal length (cm); BL, body length (cm); SL, standard length (cm).\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tfoot\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn haplotype analysis, one main haplogroup was identified among the 7 SNPs in the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene. The haplotypes included g.1663 C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;G, g.1684 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C, g.1769 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C, g.1799 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C, and g.1857 C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T loci. The haplotype frequencies ranged from 0.015 to 0.825 among haplotypes 1\u0026ndash;5 (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab4\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 4\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe haplotype frequencies of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene of European sea bass\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"3\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHaplotypes\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eAllele combination\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eFrequency (%)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHAP1\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCTTTT\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.825\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHAP2\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCTCTC\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.068\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHAP3\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eGCCCC\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.060\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHAP4\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eGCTCC\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.025\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHAP5\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCCCTC\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.015\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab5\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 5\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe associations of haplotypes of \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e and growth traits in the European sea bass population (Mean\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;SE)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"7\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c7\" colnum=\"7\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTraits\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHAP1\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHAP2\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHAP3\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHAP4\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHAP5\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ep*\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTW\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e452.20\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;12.42\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e466.32\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;63.54\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e567.03\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;25.39\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e720.00\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;29.81\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e473.33\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;98.99\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.002\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eFW\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e239.17\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;6.61\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e246.32\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;34.07\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e302.43\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;11.21\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e375.35\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;11.29\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e251.86\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;52.37\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.002\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHL\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e7.83\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.08\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e7.93\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.45\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e8.39\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.16\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e9.52\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.92\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e8.61\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.97\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.008\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePAL\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e20.97\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.01\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e21.05\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.06\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e21.12\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.08\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e21.09\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.13\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e20.96\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.00\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.002\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePOSTAL\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e9.21\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.09\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e8.98\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.33\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e9.61\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.23\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e10.63\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.24\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e9.32\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.54\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.047\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eBD\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e7.41\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.08\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e7.59\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.38\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e8.44\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.16\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e9.23\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.09\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e8.17\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.58\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.000\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSL\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e29.26\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.25\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e30.64\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;1.23\u003csup\u003eb\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e32.68\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;1.16\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e36.12\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;1.92\u003csup\u003ea\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e32.50\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;2.29\u003csup\u003eab\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.000\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003ctfoot\u003e \u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd colspan=\"7\"\u003eNotes: *Values with different superscripts (a, b) within the same row differ significantly at p\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05. TW (g), total weight (g); FW, filet weight (g); SL, standard length (cm); HL, head length (cm); PAL, preanal length (cm); POSTAL, postanal length (cm); BD, body depth (cm).\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tfoot\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe haplotype analysis revealed haplotypes of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene had significant associations with growth traits (\u003cem\u003eSL, HL, PAL, POSTAL, BD, TW\u003c/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eFW\u003c/em\u003e) (\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05) (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e). HAP4 (GCTCC) has a significantly higher value of growth traits than the other haplotypes in the studied European sea bass samples.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec4\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eIn silico protein analyses\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe ESPript program played a crucial role as a bioinformatics tool for unraveling the essential characteristics within protein structures (Robert and Gouet \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e). This investigation focused on the amino acid sequences corresponding to the second and third exons, and this was 81 aa in length. In this study, the alignment of amino acid sequence of the partial GH protein (81 aa) was performed by Clustal Omega, displayed by ESPript program using 3D protein structure of a GH protein (UniProt ID: Q05163) to determine the position and location of amino acid substitutions. The analysis result showed that it was identified the differences existed at two locations between the reference and our partial protein: S24L and S42T. S24L and S42T were found in α1 helix, including H34, a zinc-binding residue (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDeepMSA2 (Deep Multiple Sequence Alignment 2) functioned as a tool for creating multiple sequence alignments (MSA) for both single- and multichain proteins. It enabled the development of MSAs by incorporating homologous sequences obtained from genomic and metagenome sequence databases (Zhang et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Zheng et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). In this investigation, The DeepMSA2 (Deep Multiple Sequence Alignment 2) pipeline was employed to align the partial GH protein with homologous growth hormones from the Uniclust30, Uniref90, BFD, MGnify, and IMG/M databases (reference). In this examination, the alignment depth (Nf) and for the amino acid sequences of GH was determined as 47.4809, respectively, while the total number of aligned sequences was 1093. The findings indicated substantial conservation of five residues (L22, E23, E44, C65 and P73) across all aligned sequences. Among these, three residues (L22, C65 and P73) were also conserved in GH; however, the corresponding residues E23 and E44 were found as F23 and F44, different from most of the aligned sequences. In addition, zinc-binding residue can be predominantly four amino acids (H, Y, S, N) in the position 34 along 1093 homologous sequences (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe partial GH protein and the remaining part to form the full-length protein was combined by using the reference GH protein and 3D model of this protein was built by The SWISS-MODEL homology modeling online server (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e). The selection of the optimal template took into account factors such as the percentage of amino acid sequence identity, coverage, and the Global Model Quality Estimate (GMQE) value. The most suitable template identified was the somatotropin alphafold model (UNIPROT ID: Q9I9M4.1.A) derived from large yellow croaker (\u003cem\u003eLarimichthys crocea\u003c/em\u003e). The homology modeling process revealed a 86.27% amino acid sequence identity for GH protein. The high GMQE score of 0.80 indicated the superior quality of the predicted GH model. The 3D model comprised six α-helices (α1-α6) and two short helices (ƞ1 and ƞ2).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eIt has been investigated a 576 bp long region of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene covering 1st partial intron, 2nd exon, 2nd intron, and 3rd partial. The \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene of European sea bass populations contained 5 SNPs in the first intron, 4 SNPs in the second exon, and an SNP in the third exon region. Two SNPs, g.1557 A\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T and g.1611 T\u0026gt;, located in the first intron region were found associated with TW, FW, HL, and PAL traits. Introns, particularly the first ones, are essential for accurately localizing specific mRNAs within the cytoplasm, encompassing functions related to mRNA export (Jo and Choi \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Intergenic regions can accumulate more gene mutations in comparison to exons due to their longer length (Zhang et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR56\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). Although intronic regions do not code for proteins, they play a regulatory role in mRNA splicing, gene transcription, translation and expression (Pagani and Baralle \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e; Hull et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e; Sun et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). The SNPs in noncoding regions can modulate gene expression and hence regulate various properties such as growth, disease resistance etc. (Kuhl et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; \u0026Ouml;zcan-G\u0026ouml;k\u0026ccedil;ek et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; \u0026Ouml;zcan-G\u0026ouml;k\u0026ccedil;ek and Işık \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Zhang et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR55\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Zepeda-Batista et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR54\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). In studies conducted on the genome wide association, it has been reported that disease or a trait-associated SNPs are more frequently found in intronic regions (Li et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e; Welter et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR52\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Jo and Choi \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Early-stage growth in \u003cem\u003eSalvelinus alpicus\u003c/em\u003e was significantly affected by the SNP in the intragenic region of the Growth Hormone Releasing Hormone (\u003cem\u003eGHRH\u003c/em\u003e) locus, which regulates growth hormone secretion (Tao and Boulding \u003cspan citationid=\"CR43\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIt has been detected 5 SNPs, g.1799 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C, 1824 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C, g.1857 C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T, 1912 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;A, and 2052 G\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C, in the second and third exons of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene. The SNP g.1857 C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T (present in the second exon of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene) caused a synonymous mutation in phenylalanine amino acid and was revealed to be associated with SL (\u003cem\u003eP\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). Li et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e) have reported 2 SNPs (g.5045T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C and g.5234T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;G) in the 5th exon and 5th intron regions of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene to be associated with growth performance in the \u003cem\u003eSniperca chuatsi\u003c/em\u003e population (\u003cem\u003eP\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). Three SNPs detected in the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene in yellow catfish (\u003cem\u003ePelteobagrus fulvidraco\u003c/em\u003e) were significantly associated with yield characteristics such as body thickness, caudal pedicle length, and BL (Li et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). The administration of \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e in transgenic Atlantic salmon (\u003cem\u003eSalmo salar\u003c/em\u003e) was reported to affect the proliferative response in terms of faster growth and more myogenic progenitor cell proliferation (Levesque et al. 2008). Similarly, Tian et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e) reported that the 4 SNPs in the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene, with 2 of these SNPs located in the 4nd exon and the others in the 5th exon and 5th inton, have been observed. They have suggested that these polymorphisms are significantly associated with growth traits and could be used for MAS in \u003cem\u003eSiniperca chuatsi\u003c/em\u003e populations. In a study, a total of 4 polymorphic SNPs out of 32 SNPs (one in the fifth exon and 31 in intronic regions) in the \u003cem\u003eSiniperca chuatsi GH\u003c/em\u003e gene were found to be significantly associated with economically important growth characteristics (Sun et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). Hu et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e) found an SNP and 4-bp indel in the third intron and 3 synonymous SNPs in exon 4 in the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene of common carp. Liu et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e) found SNPs in the third exon and intron of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene to be associated with the growth traits in common carp in Southern China. The SNPs in introns, promotors, and 5\u0026prime;UTR regions of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene have an important effect on growth traits. Jaser et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e) identified 10 SNPs, 9 in the proximal promoter region and one in the 5\u0026prime;UTR region of the Nile tilapia (\u003cem\u003eOreochromis niloticus\u003c/em\u003e) \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene, and reported that 5 genotypes of these SNPs were associated with the highest market weight.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe haplotypes showed significant associations with some measured growth traits of European sea bass in this study. HAP4 showed greater \u003cem\u003eTW\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eFW\u003c/em\u003e traits than the other haplotypes (\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). HAP1 was the most common haplotype (82%) which could be due to its presence in the ancestral gene and other haplotypes emerged because of mutations in the evolutionary process. On the other hand, it was found that HAP1 was significantly lower than the other haplotypes for the TW, FW, HL, PAL, BD, and SL traits of European sea bass. The filet weight is an important trait for the profitable production of European sea bass (S\u0026aacute;nchez et al. 2022; \u0026Ouml;zcan-G\u0026ouml;k\u0026ccedil;ek et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). Similar to our results, Hu et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e) identified 4 haplotypes and 10 diplotypes in Heilongjiang carp (\u003cem\u003eCyprinus carpio haematopterus)\u003c/em\u003e, German mirror carp (\u003cem\u003eCyprinus carpio\u003c/em\u003e L. \u003cem\u003emirror\u003c/em\u003e), and Purse red carp (\u003cem\u003eCyprinus carpio var. wuyuanensis)\u003c/em\u003e breeds in China. They showed that the H2H2 diplotype fish have significantly higher body weight and net weight than the other diplotypes in the Heilongjiang carp breed. Sun et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e) found one of the 4 diplotypes detected in the \u003cem\u003eSiniperca chuatsi GH\u003c/em\u003e gene was significantly associated with higher body weight, total length, and BL. Similar observations were recorded in another study by Hu et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). In the human \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene, 16 SNPs were described for 36 different promoter haplotypes were evaluated and some haplotypes were correlated with significantly reduced levels of reporter gene expression that some of these SNPs were identified as major determinants of the \u003cem\u003eGH1\u003c/em\u003e gene expression level (Horan et al. 2003). Similar to these results, Jaser et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e) reported that SNPs significantly related to the growth rate in Nile tilapia may be interdependent and related to the levels of GH expression during the growth phase.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe 3D structure of a protein depends on the sequence of amino acids and a mutation can change the structure of the native proteins (Agnihotry et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). In this study, 2 nonsynonymous (S24L and S42T) amino acid substitutions were observed in the native GH protein, based on reference gene (GeneBank ID: GQ918491). The S24L mutation could affect the 3D structure of GH because leucine is a relatively large and nonpolar amino acid, whereas serine is a smaller and more polar amino acid (Probst et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e). This may affect the folding structure, thereby efficiency and stability of the protein. Amino acids, especially Leucine (Leu), play a dual role \u0026ndash; not only as substrates for the synthesis of new proteins but also as signaling molecules that initiate the process of protein synthesis (Atherton et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Columbus et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Duan et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; S\u0026uuml;rmeli et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; S\u0026uuml;rmeli and Şanlı-Mohamed \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). Mutations in exons are generally harmful and eliminated by selection (Dukler et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). The GH is a major hormone controlling growth and metamorphosis in fish larvae (McMenamin and Parichy \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e; Wang et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR50\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e). Therefore, the S24L mutation may be eliminated from the population in the next generations. Because in S24L, we found 2 genotypes, predominantly homozygote, and low-frequency heterozygote. We recommend to eliminate the CC genotype from the population due to its deletirousor potentially lethal effect on the protein structure.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Conclusions","content":"\u003cp\u003eGenetic variations in the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene in European sea bass populations reared in Mediterranean conditions were investigated in this study. We detected 10 SNPs in the intron and exon regions of the GH gene. Based on the outcomes of this study, we suggest HAP4 should be used as a potential marker to improve the accuracy of selection in European sea bass in Mediterranean conditions due to its positive association with body weight and length traits. The association of these SNPs with growth traits needs to be investigated further. In addition, the association of the reported SNPs with other traits of economic importance (meat quality and reproduction traits) and their interactions with other genes should be studied. These SNPs have the potential to be used for marker-assisted selection in European sea bass breeding.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor Contributions\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEmel \u0026Ouml;zcan-G\u0026ouml;k\u0026ccedil;ek and Raziye Işık developed the research topic and acted as study principal investigator (PI). Emel \u0026Ouml;zcan-G\u0026ouml;k\u0026ccedil;ek, Bilge Karahan and Kutsal Gamsız collected phenotypic data and sampling. Emel \u0026Ouml;zcan-G\u0026ouml;k\u0026ccedil;ek obtained, analyzed genetic data. Emel \u0026Ouml;zcan-G\u0026ouml;k\u0026ccedil;ek, Raziye Işık and Yusuf S\u0026uuml;rmeli performed statistical analysis and wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFunding:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eThis work was supported by the Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit of the Ege University (Project No: FKP-2020-21912).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAcknowledgement:\u003c/strong\u003e We are grateful to Ege University Planning and Monitoring Coordination of Organizational Development and Directorate of Library and Documentation for their support in editing and proofreading service of this study. The authors would like to express their thanks to Research Square for incorporating the showcased study into the pre-publication preview, contributing to its visibility in the international literature.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData Availability:\u003c/strong\u003e The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCode Availability:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eNot applicable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEthics Approval:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eAnimal handling procedures adhered to the guidelines established by the University of Ege Animal Ethics Committee.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent Participates:\u003c/strong\u003e Not applicable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent for Publication:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eAll authors reviewed and approved the manuscript for publication.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConflicts of Interest:\u003c/strong\u003e The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest to disclose.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAgnihotry S, Pathak RK, Singh DB, Tiwari A, Hussain I (2022) Protein structure prediction. 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J Appl Ichthyol 1(1):31\u0026ndash;34\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Dicentrarchus labrax, growth hormone, candidate gene, SNP, polymorphism","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-3911408/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3911408/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThe growth hormone (\u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e) gene plays a regulatory role in postnatal somatic growth, metabolism, and development in vertebrates and fish. The genetic variations in a partial region of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene and its associations with growth traits were studied using DNA sequencing in 200 European sea bass (\u003cem\u003eDicentrarchus labrax\u003c/em\u003e) individuals. We identified 5 haplotypes (HAP1-5) and 10 novel SNPs (g.1557 A\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T, g.1611 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C, g.1663 C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;G, g.1799 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C, g.1824 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C, g.1912 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;A, and g.2052 G\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C) in the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene in European sea bass. The genotypes of g.1611 T\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;C locus of the \u003cem\u003eGH\u003c/em\u003e gene were found to be significantly associated with total weight, filet weight, and head length). The association between the GH g.1557A\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T genotypes and preanal and abdominal length was statistically significant (\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). Similarly, the genotypes of g.1857 C\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;T loci having the synonymous mutation in phenylalanine amino acid were significantly associated with standard length (p\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). HAP4 reported the highest weight and length traits than the other haplotypes (\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05). It is suggested that HAP4 should be used as a potential marker to improve the accuracy of selection in European sea bass in Mediterranean conditions.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"In Silico Protein Investigation and Correlation Analysis of Growth Hormone Gene and Growth Traits in European Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus labrax)","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2024-03-05 17:06:44","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-3911408/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"b6300273-a09f-46be-a7ae-5107eafa7e45","owner":[],"postedDate":"March 5th, 2024","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2024-03-06T14:49:17+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2024-03-05 17:06:44","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-3911408","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-3911408","identity":"rs-3911408","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"qtupq5eGEP_6zYnWcrvyt","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}