Genome-Wide Association Analyses of Fertility Traits in Beef Heifers.

ABSTRACT: The ability of livestock to reproduce efficiently is critical to the sustainability of animal agriculture. Antral follicle count (AFC) and reproductive tract scores (RTS) can be used to estimate fertility in beef heifers, but the genetic mechanisms influencing variation in these measures are not well understood. Two genome-wide association studies (GWAS) were conducted to identify the significant loci associated with these traits. In total, 293 crossbred beef heifers were genotyped on the Bovine GGP 50K chip and genotypes were imputed to 836,121 markers. A GWAS was performed with the AFC phenotype for 217 heifers with a multi-locus mixed model, conducted using the year, age at time of sampling and principal component analysis groupings as the covariates. The RTS GWAS was performed with 289

SUBMITTER: Stegemiller MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7913221 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature