BackgroundConsumers are becoming increasingly conscientious about the nutritional value of their food. Consumption of some fatty acids has been associated with human health traits such as blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Therefore, it is important to investigate genetic variation in content of fatty acids present in meat. Previously publications reported regions of the cattle genome that are additively associated with variation in fatty acid content. This study evaluated epistatic interactions, which could account for additional genetic variation in fatty acid content.ResultsEpistatic interactions for 44 fatty acid traits in a population of Angus beef cattle were evaluated with EpiSNPmpi. False discovery rate (FDR) was controlled at 5 % and was limited to well-represented genotypic combinations. Epistatic interactions were detected for 37 triacylglyceride (TAG), 36 phospholipid (PL) fatty acid traits, and three weight traits. A total of 6,181, 7,168, and 0 significant epistatic interactions (FDR < 0.05, 50-animals per genotype combination) were associated with Triacylglyceride fatty acids, Phospholipid fatty acids, and weight traits respectively and most were additive-by-additive interactions. A large number of interactions occurred in potential regions of regulatory control along the chromosomes where genes related to fatty acid metabolism reside.ConclusionsMany fatty acids were associated with epistatic interactions. Despite a large number of significant interactions, there are a limited number of genomic locations that harbored these interactions. While larger population sizes are needed to accurately validate and quantify these epistatic interactions, the current findings point towards additional genetic variance that can be accounted for within these fatty acid traits.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-016-3235-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary inclusion of different levels of Rosemary and Marjoram plants ongrowth performance and digestion coefficientsof New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits.Seventy two weaned rabbits were divided into six groups. The 1 st group was fed basal diet and served as control group, the 2 nd and 3 rd groups were fed the basal diet supplementedwithRosemary dry plant powder (1.5% and 3.0%, respectively), 4 th and 5 th groups were fed the basal diet supplemented with Marjoram dryplant powder (1.5% and 3.0%, respectively), the 6 th group was fed the basal diet supplemented with mixture of (1. 5% Rosemary dry +1.5% Marjoram dry).At the end of the experiment eighteen rabbit males were used in digestibility trail. Carcass traits and blood metabolites were determined by slaughtering 3 rabbits from each group at the end of the growth period. The obtained results revealed that,final body weight and daily body weight gain were significantly (P≤0.05) higher with 1.5 % rosemary, 1.5 % marjoram and their mixture compared to control and other treatment groups. Feed conversion significantly (P≤0.05) improved in rabbits fed diet containing 1.5% marjoram compared with control group. Also, rabbits fed diet supplemented with 1.5% marjoramshowed the lowest (P≤0.05) feed intake compared with control group and other treatments. The digestibility of DM, OM, CP and EE and NFE, significantly (P≤0.05) improved with diet supplemented with 1.5% rosemary. The same trend was observed in TDN%. However, The DCP % in rabbits fed diet supplemented with 1.5 % rosemary and 1.5 % marjoram was significantly (p≤0.05) higher than of those the other diets. Rabbits fed diet with 1.5% rosemary and 3% marjoram significantly increased dressing percentage.