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Genome-wide Association Mapping of Response to Infection by the Aleutian Mink Disease Virus
Aleutian mink disease virus (AMDV) causes the most important health issue for the mink industry worldwide. With no treatment or vaccine, and failure of viral eradication attempts from most regions of the world, genetic selection for tolerance is a possibility. The genomes of 95 black mink that were inoculated with AMDV and showed varying degrees of response to infection were analyzed using next generation sequencing. A total of 1713 high quality single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified and analyzed for their associations with response to infection. Some SNPs were significantly associated with severity of disease symptoms in kidneys (0 to 4) and presence of AMDV in blood and organs. Only weak associations were discovered for antibody titre (0 to 1024) and severity of the disease symptoms in liver and lung. These findings provide the first step towards marker-assisted breeding for mink tolerant of AMDV.
Keywords:
Mink
AMDV
Genome-wide association mapping
