engleski

Estimation of linkage disequilibrium in Pag and Istrian sheep breed: towards genomic optimum contribution selection

Knowledge of the genetic architecture of the population is important to predict the potential of genomic selection. The strength of association between genome wide single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and unknown quantitative trait loci (QTL), measured by linkage disequilibrium (LD), represents the corner stone of genomic selection. The aim of this study was to estimate LD in two Croatian native dual purpose (milk-meat) sheep breeds (Pag sheep, n=719 and Istrian sheep, n=749) using the Illumina Ovine 50K SNP chip. The main goal in these populations is to improve dairy yield traits, preferably via genomic optimum contribution selection. The estimated LD was low (r2 Pag =0.04, D’Pag =0.28, r2Istrian =0.06, D’Istrian =0.39, ) with very steep LD decay in both breeds. The results obtained are promising for conservation of these breeds, but less promising for the success of genomic selection. In order to maximize benefits of genomic information, single step genomic BLUP should be applied.

linkage disequilibrium ; sheep ; OCS

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