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Novel Tools Provide New Opportunities for Genetic Improvement of Swine
New genomic tools like draft sequences and high density SNP chips allow researchers to investigate underlying phenomenon that are not readily obvious from previous studies. Researchers have used these to perform GWAS but a number of other interesting problems can be tackled. Such tools allow for understanding individual gene effects on multiple traits, identifying recessive deleterious mutations, discovering inbreeding in genomic regions, studying population(s) structure(s), and finding signatures of selection and selective sweeps. We examined several pig populations using 60K SNP chip data. Analyses revealed genomic regions that contain genes that control several traits and in some cases regions that break the usual genetic correlation. Other analyses identified regions where homozygosity has been enhanced through selection or is missing, presumably due to lethal alleles. Such analyses provide the opportunity to better understand genetic control of important pig production traits.
Keywords:
Genomic selection
Signatures of selection
Runs of homozygosity
