title: Epistasis for founder-specific inbreeding depression in rabbits.
abstract: Inbreeding depression is a topic of main interest in experimental and domestic species, although previous studies simplified this genetically complex effect to the linear (or quadratic) regression coefficient linked to the inbreeding coefficient of each individual or, in more recent studies, to founder-specific inbreeding coefficients. Going beyond generalizing to these traditional scenarios, our research focused on the analysis of gene-by-gene interactions leading to epistasis for inbreeding depression effects. Under a Bayesian context, inbreeding depression effects were evaluated for weaning weight (WW) in a commercial rabbit population founded from 4 bucks and 1 doe (MARET population). Founder-specific inbreeding depression effects for the 4 bucks ranged between -81.1 and 38.3 g for each 1% inbreeding. More interestingly, 2 epistatic interactions between the partial inbreeding coefficient of 2 bucks were also significant and negative, showing a -1.9 and -1.0 g reduction on WW. These results provide the first evidence of epistatic inbreeding depression phenomena in domestic species, emphasizing the complexity of the genetic architecture in mammals.
authors.affiliation: Departament de Ciència Animal i dels Aliments, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain. joaquim.casellas@uab.cat
authors.forename: Joaquim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Casellas
authors.forename: Dolors
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vidal-Roqueta
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Flores
authors.forename: Dolors
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Casellas-Vidal
authors.forename: Marçal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Llach-Vila
authors.forename: Roser
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Salgas-Fina
authors.forename: Pere
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Casellas-Molas
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001835:Body Weight / Q000235:genetics; D004843:Epistasis, Genetic; D005260:Female; D018703:Founder Effect; D007178:Inbreeding; D008297:Male; D008957:Models, Genetic; D011817:Rabbits / Q000235:genetics*; D014886:Weaning