animals Review Key Genes Regulating Skeletal Muscle Development and Growth in Farm Animals Mohammadreza Mohammadabadi 1 , Farhad Bordbar 1,* , Just Jensen 2 , Min Du 3 and Wei Guo 4 1 Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman 77951, Iran;
[email protected] 2 Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics, Aarhus University, 8210 Aarhus, Denmark;
[email protected] 3 Washington Center for Muscle Biology, Department of Animal Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99163, USA;
[email protected] 4 Muscle Biology and Animal Biologics, Animal and Dairy Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53558, USA;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Simple Summary: Skeletal muscle mass is an important economic trait, and muscle development and growth is a crucial factor to supply enough meat for human consumption. Thus, understanding (candidate) genes regulating skeletal muscle development is crucial for understanding molecular genetic regulation of muscle growth and can be benefit the meat industry toward the goal of in- creasing meat yields. During the past years, significant progress has been made for understanding these mechanisms, and thus, we decided to write a comprehensive review covering regulators and (candidate) genes crucial for muscle development and growth in farm animals. Detection of these genes and factors increases our understanding of muscle growth and development and is a great help for breeders to satisfy demands for meat production on a global scale. Citation: Mohammadabadi, M.; Abstract: Farm-animal species play crucial roles in satisfying demands for meat on a global scale, Bordbar, F.; Jensen, J.; Du, M.; Guo, W.