1Animal and Veterinary Sciences,Scotland's Rural College,Easter Bush,Midlothian EH25 9RG,Scotland,UK.
4British Texel Sheep Society,National Agricultural Centre,Stoneleigh Park,Kenilworth,Warwickshire,CV8 2LG,UK.
Animal. 2018 May;12(5):915-922. doi: 10.1017/S1751731117002488. Epub 2017 Oct 17.
Sheep are an important part of the global agricultural economy. Growth and meat production traits are significant economic traits in sheep. The Texel breed is the most popular terminal sire breed in the UK, mainly selected for muscle growth and lean carcasses. This is a study based on a genome-wide association approach that investigates the links between some economically important traits, including computed tomography (CT) measurements, and molecular polymorphisms in UK Texel sheep. Our main aim was to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) associated with growth, carcass, health and welfare traits of the Texel sheep breed. This study used data from 384 Texel rams. Data comprised ten traits, including two CT measured traits. The phenotypic data were placed in four categories: growth traits, carcass traits, health traits and welfare traits. De-regressed estimated breeding values (EBV) for these traits together with sire genotypes derived with the Ovine 50 K SNP array of Illumina were jointly analysed in a genome wide association analysis. Eight novel chromosome-wise significant associations were found for carcass, growth, health and welfare traits. Three significant markers were intronic variants and the remainder intergenic variants. This study is a first step to search for genomic regions controlling CT-based productivity traits related to body and carcass composition in a terminal sire sheep breed using a 50 K SNP genome-wide array. Results are important for the further development of strategies to identify causal variants associated with CT measures and other commercial traits in sheep. Independent studies are needed to confirm these results and identify candidate genes for the studied traits.
绵羊是全球农业经济的重要组成部分。生长和肉质生产性状是绵羊重要的经济性状。特克赛尔品种是英国最受欢迎的终端父本品种，主要用于肌肉生长和瘦肉胴体选择。这是一项基于全基因组关联方法的研究，调查了一些经济重要性状之间的联系，包括计算机断层扫描（CT）测量和英国特克赛尔绵羊的分子多态性。我们的主要目的是确定与特克赛尔绵羊生长、胴体、健康和福利性状相关的单核苷酸多态性（SNP）。本研究使用了 384 只特克赛尔公羊的数据。数据包括 10 个性状，包括 2 个 CT 测量性状。表型数据分为四类：生长性状、胴体性状、健康性状和福利性状。将这些性状的去回归估计育种值（EBV）与基于 Illumina 的 Ovine 50 K SNP 阵列获得的 sire 基因型一起，在全基因组关联分析中进行联合分析。在胴体、生长、健康和福利性状方面发现了 8 个新的染色体水平显著关联。三个显著标记是内含子变异，其余是基因间变异。本研究是首次使用 50 K SNP 全基因组阵列，在终端父本绵羊品种中，搜索与 CT 相关的生产力性状有关的与身体和胴体组成相关的基因组区域的第一步。结果对于进一步开发识别与 CT 测量值和绵羊其他商业性状相关的因果变异的策略非常重要。需要进行独立的研究来验证这些结果并确定研究性状的候选基因。
