title: Improving the accuracy of genomic prediction in Chinese Holstein cattle by using one-step blending.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The one-step blending approach has been suggested for genomic prediction in dairy cattle. The core of this approach is to incorporate pedigree and phenotypic information of non-genotyped animals. The objective of this study was to investigate the improvement of the accuracy of genomic prediction using the one-step blending method in Chinese Holstein cattle.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Three methods, GBLUP (genomic best linear unbiased prediction), original one-step blending with a genomic relationship matrix, and adjusted one-step blending with an adjusted genomic relationship matrix, were compared with respect to the accuracy of genomic prediction for five milk production traits in Chinese Holstein. For the two one-step blending methods, de-regressed proofs of 17 509 non-genotyped cows, including 424 dams and 17 085 half-sisters of the validation cows, were incorporated in the prediction model. The results showed that, averaged over the five milk production traits, the one-step blending increased the accuracy of genomic prediction by about 0.12 compared to GBLUP. No further improvement in accuracies was obtained from the adjusted one-step blending over the original one-step blending in our situation. Improvements in accuracies obtained with both one-step blending methods were almost completely contributed by the non-genotyped dams.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Compared with GBLUP, the one-step blending approach can significantly improve the accuracy of genomic prediction for milk production traits in Chinese Holstein cattle. Thus, the one-step blending is a promising approach for practical genomic selection in Chinese Holstein cattle, where the reference population mainly consists of cows.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture of China, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China. lixiujin996@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Xiujin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture of China, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China. waswangs@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Sheng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture of China, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China. huangj1023@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Ju
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture of China, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China. 13126665473@163.com.
authors.forename: Leyi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture of China, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China. qzhang@cau.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Qin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Agriculture of China, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China. xding@cau.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Xiangdong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ding
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D005260:Female; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D007774:Lactation / Q000235:genetics; D008297:Male; D008892:Milk; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010375:Pedigree; D040641:Quantitative Trait Loci; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D035781:Siblings