Accuracy of Genomic Breeding Values for Meat Quality Traits in Nellore Cattle

Abstract Text: The aim of this study was to evaluate accuracy of genomic prediction for meat quality traits. Meat samples were evaluated for shear force (SF), lightness (LN), redness (RN) and yellowness (YN) measurement. Analyses were conducted to estimate heritability, breeding values and reliability for all traits. Marker genotypes were obtained using the Illumina high density panel. For each trait, five-fold cross-validation was used to evaluate the genomic accuracy. The heritability estimates were 0.10, 0.10, 0.05 and 0.10 for SF, RN, YN and LN, respectively.  YN showed the lowest accuracy of genomic prediction (0.18) and the lowest average theoretical accuracy of genomic predictions (tACC). The genomic prediction accuracy was higher (0.23-0.33) for the others traits, which showed higher and similar heritability estimates. The low accuracy of prediction for all traits was likely a consequence of the low heritability and the number of animals in the training population.

Keywords: Bos Indicus, GBLUP, Accuracy.