A genome-wide association study of young horse test traits in Swedish Warmblood

• Tests of three-year-old Swedish Warmblood (SWB) horses include traditional subjective assessments on a ten point scale of the quality of the horses in relation to the breeding goal. In 2013 a complementary linear scoring of the horses on a nine point scale from one extreme to the other was introduced. The horses are assessed for traits related to conformation, gaits and jumping ability. Also, deviations from normality are indicated for some traits (0/1). In this study we aimed to find genomic regions associated with these test traits. In total 380 SWB horses tested as three-year-olds in 2013 or 2014 were genotyped using the Affymetrix 670k SNP bead chip. After quality control the data set included 379 horses and 467,606 SNPs. Counting also traits recorded in only one of the years, the data included 97 traits. A fast score test for association in the R software GenAbel was used for a first set of analyses. The uncorrected lambda value was >1 for most traits so genomic control was used, and the model included year and place of the test and sex of the horse. Preliminary results validate findings in other horse breeds of a region on ECA3 highly significant for height at withers. SNP-associations significant after Bonferroni correction were also found for traditionally scored type of the horse, and linear measures of type (light - heavy built). Because the data was particularly stratified for jumping traits, analyses were also done within clusters of genomic relationship. Within one of the two clusters, significant associations were also found for jumping technique. Suggestive significant associations were found for several traits, and continued analyses including polygenic effects are in the pipeline.

Ämnesord

LANTBRUKSVETENSKAPER  -- Bioteknologi med applikationer på växter och djur -- Genetik och förädling inom lantbruksvetenskap (hsv//swe)

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES  -- Agricultural Biotechnology -- Genetics and Breeding in Agricultural Sciences (hsv//eng)

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