Plant & Animal Genomes XV Conference Plant & Animal Genomes XV ConferenceJanuary 13-17, 2007
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA
Max F. Rothschild , Zhiliang Hu
Nearly 13 years have passed since the first important swine QTL was discovered. Initially these QTL studies included exotic crosses involving Meishan or Wild Boar crosses, while more recently domestic breeds have been used. Since that time over 1300 QTL on a variety of traits including growth, backfat, meat quality, reproduction and health traits have been discovered (see http://www.animalgenome.org/QTLdb/pig.html). QTL research has accelerated with nearly 30 new QTL or candidate gene papers recently being published. These include an increasing number of meat quality QTL being reported and growing numbers of reproduction, health and behavioral QTL being discovered. Fine mapping using candidate and positional candidate genes has yielded some QTN and genes with clear associations with the traits of interest and these are being used in the pig production industry. The major limit to discovery still is the lack of very large populations with well described phenotypes. New statistical programs employing linkage disequilibrium methods and association mapping have helped to narrow regions and test candidates discovered in QTL experiments in commercial swine populations. Initial genome wide SNP association testing has begun in some commercial populations. International efforts to sequence the pig genome will yield considerable amounts of new information that will eventually aid in increased QTN discovery and eventual use in the swine industry and for biomedical models.