Genome-wide association study of bone quality and feed efficiency-related traits in Pekin ducks

• Published in: Genomics (San Diego, Calif.) Vol. 112; no. 6; pp. 5021 - 5028
• Main Authors: Li, Guang-Sheng, Liu, Wei-Wei, Zhang, Fan, Zhu, Feng, Yang, Fang-Xi, Hao, Jin-Ping, Hou, Zhuo-Cheng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.11.2020
• Subjects: Body weight; Bone breaking strength; Bone mineral content; Bone mineral density; Residual feed intake; Bone mineral content; Residual feed intake; Bone mineral density; Bone breaking strength; Body weight
• ISSN: 0888-7543; 1089-8646
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ygeno.2020.09.023

Feeding and bone traits are vital for breeding and reproduction in the commercial duck industry. In this study, we performed a genome-wide association study for feeding and bone traits in a population of 540 lean-type Pekin ducks, followed by genotyping-by-sequencing procedures. The genetic parameters of feeding and bone traits were also estimated using genomic information. In total, seventy-eight significant SNPs were determined, and eleven of them reached the genome-wide significant level for 7 traits except for body weight at 42-day old. A peak of genome-wide significant SNPs was detected on chromosome 2 for feed conversion ratio (P-value = 7.46E-11), and the top SNP (P-value = 2.23E-08) for bone-breaking strength was also obtained in the upstream of gene RAPGEF5. This study provided a list of novel markers and candidate genes associated with feeding and bone traits in Pekin ducks, which could contribute to the genetic selection in duck breeding. •This study is the first to report genomic heritability and candidate loci for bone quality traits in ducks.•Bone quality traits were discovered to be related to some feed efficiency traits for the first time in ducks.