Investigation of individual heterozygosity correlated to growth traits in Tongshan Black-boned goat.
Ten single nucleotide polymorphisms were used for genotyping of 176 Tongshan Black-boned goats, which are Chinese indigenous goat colony for meat production. The average individual heterozygosity was 0.292. To assess the correlations between individual heterozygosity and growth in Tongshan Black-boned goat individuals, and the potential of using individual heterozygosity as an indicator of growth, the data of growth traits, including body weight, height at withers, body length, chest girth and cannon circumference, were collected. Significant correlations were observed between individual heterozygosity and body weight, height at withers, body length, heart girth, cannon circumference (P < 0.05). All the significant regression showed positive slope with R square values ranged from 0.0251 to 0.0368. These data suggests that individual heterozygosity is positively correlated with growth traits in Tongshan Black-boned goat individuals and associative overdominance may affect Tongshan Black-boned goat growth significantly. Therefore it is possible to use individual heterozygosity as an indicator of growth. Our results also provide a strong support to the overdominance hypothesis.
Key Laboratory of Agricultural Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of the Ministry of Education, Wuhan, 430070, People's Republic of China.
Yan Guo
YG
Han
Gui Qiong
GQ
Liu
Xun Ping
XP
Jiang
Guo Ming
GM
Liang
Chun Bo
CB
He
Dang Wei
DW
Wang
Yan
Y
Wu
Xing Long
XL
Xiang
Jie
J
Hu
Yu Qin
YQ
Peng
D000818:Animals; D002681:China; D056726:Genetic Association Studies; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006041:Goats / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development*; D006579:Heterozygote; D010641:Phenotype; D040641:Quantitative Trait Loci; D019655:Quantitative Trait, Heritable