• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.1702-1705
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• 2006

A simulation study was conducted to evaluate a fine-mapping method exploiting population-wide linkage disequilibrium. Data were simulated according to the pedigree structure based on a large paternal half-sib family population with a total of 1,034 or 2,068 progeny. Twenty autosomes of 100 cM were generated with 5 cM or 1 cM marker intervals for all founder individuals in the pedigree, and marker alleles and a number of quantitative trait loci (QTL) explaining a total of 70% phenotypic variance were generated and randomly assigned across the whole chromosomes, assuming linkage equilibrium between the markers. The founder chromosomes were then descended through the pedigree to the current offspring generation, including recombinants that were generated by recombination between adjacent markers. Power to detect QTL was high for the QTL with at least moderate size, which was more pronounced with larger sample size and denser marker map. However, sample size contributed much more significantly to power to detect QTL than map density to the precise estimate of QTL position. No QTL was detected on the test chromosomes in which QTL was not assigned, which did not allow detection of false positive QTL. For the multiple QTL that were closely located, the estimates of the QTL positions were biased, except when the QTL were located on the right marker positions. Our fine mapping simulation results indicate that construction of dense maps and large sample size is needed to increase power to detect QTL and mapping precision for QTL position.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.1669-1674
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• 2005

Maximum likelihood methodology was applied to analyze the efficiency and statistical power of interval mapping by using a threshold model. The factors that affect QTL detection efficiency (e.g. QTL effect, heritability and incidence of categories) were simulated in our study. Daughter design with multiple families was applied, and the size of segregating population is 500. The results showed that the threshold model has a great advantage in parameters estimation and power of QTL mapping, and has nice efficiency and accuracy for discrete traits. In addition, the accuracy and power of QTL mapping depended on the effect of putative quantitative trait loci, the value of heritability and incidence directly. With the increase of QTL effect, heritability and incidence of categories, the accuracy and power of QTL mapping improved correspondingly.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.473-480
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• 2003

In order to control the genetic background noise in QTL mapping, cofactor markers were incorporated in single marker analysis (SMACO) and interval mapping (CIM). A simulation was performed to see how effective the cofactors were by the number of QTL, the number and the type of markers, and the marker spacing. The results of QTL mapping for the simulated data showed that the use of cofactors was slightly effective when detecting a single QTL. On the other hand, a considerable improvement was observed when dealing with more than one QTL. Genetic background noise was efficiently absorbed with linked markers rather than unlinked markers. Furthermore, the efficiency was different in QTL mapping depending on the type of linked markers. Well-chosen markers in both SMACO and CIM made the range of linkage position for a significant QTL narrow and the estimates of QTL effects accurate. Generally, 3 to 5 cofactors offered accurate results. Over-fitting was a problem with many regressor variables when the heritability was small. Various marker spacing from 4 to 20 cM did not change greatly the detection of multiple QTLs, but they were less efficient when the marker spacing exceeded 30 cM. Likelihood ratio increased with a large heritability, and the threshold heritability for QTL detection was between 0.30 and 0.05.

• Asian Journal of Turfgrass Science
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.85-100
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• 2008

Gray leaf spot (GLS) is a serious fungal disease caused by Pyricularia oryzae Cavara, recently reported on the important turf and forage species, perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenneL.). This fungus also causes rice blast, which is usually controlled by host resistance, but durability of resistance is a problem. Few instances of GLS resistance have been reported in perennial ryegrass. However, two major QTL for GLS resistance have been detected on linkage groups 3 and 6 in an Italian x perennial ryegrass mapping population. To confirm that those QTL are still detectable in the next generation and can function in a different genetic background, a resistant segregant from this population has been crossed with an unrelated susceptible perennial clone, to form a new mapping population segregating for GLS resistance. QTL analysis has been performed in the new population, using two different ryegrass field isolates and RAPD, RFLP, and SSR marker-based linkage maps for each parent. Results indicate the previously identified QTL on linkage group 3 is still significant in the new population, with LOD and percent of phenotypic variance explained ranging from 2.0 to 3.5 and 5% to 10%, respectively. Also two QTL were detected in the susceptible parent, with similar LOD and phenotypic variance explained. Although the linkage group 6 QTL was not detected, the major QTL on linkage group 3 appears to beconfirmed. These results will add to our understanding of the genetic architecture of GLS resistance in ryegrass, which will facilitate its use in perennial ryegrass breeding programs.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.587-596
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• 2001

In the last decade, rapid developments in molecular biotechnology and of genomic tools have enabled the creation of dense linkage maps across whole genomes of human, plant and animals. Successful development and implementation of interval mapping methodologies have allowed detection of the quantitative trait loci (QTL) responsible for economically important traits in experimental and commercial livestock populations. The candidate gene approach can be used in any general population with the availability of a large resource of candidate genes from the human or rodent genomes using comparative maps, and the validated candidate genes can be directly applied to commercial breeds. For the QTL detected from primary genome scans, two incipient fine mapping approaches are applied by generating new recombinants over several generations or utilizing historical recombinants with identity-by-descent (IBD) and linkage disequilibrium (LD) mapping. The high resolution definition of QTL position from fine mapping will allow the more efficient implementation of breeding programs such as marker-assisted selection (MAS) or marker-assisted introgression (MAI), and will provide a route toward cloning the QTL.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.17-21
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to improve mapping power and resolution for the QTL influencing carcass quality in Hanwoo, which was previously detected on the bovine chromosome (BTA) 6. A sample of 427 steers were chosen, which were the progeny from 45 Korean proven sires in the Hanwoo Improvement Center, Seosan, Korea. The samples were genotyped with the set of 2,535 SNPs on BTA6 that were imbedded in the Illumina bovine 50 k chip. A linkage disequilibrium variance component mapping (LDVCM) method, which exploited both linkage between sires and their steers and population-wide linkage disequilibrium, was applied to detect QTL for four carcass quality traits. Fifteen QTL were detected at 0.1% comparison-wise level, for which five, three, five, and two QTL were associated with carcass weight (CWT), backfat thickness (BFT), longissimus dorsi muscle area (LMA), and marbling score (Marb), respectively. The number of QTL was greater compared with our previous results, in which twelve QTL for carcass quality were detected on the BTA6 in the same population by applying other linkage disequilibrium mapping approaches. One QTL for LMA was detected on the distal region (110,285,672 to 110,633,096 bp) with the most significant evidence for linkage (p< $10^{-5}$). Another QTL that was detected on the proximal region (33,596,515 to 33,897,434 bp) was pleiotrophic, i.e. influencing CWT, BFT, and LMA. Our results suggest that the LDVCM is a good alternative method for QTL fine-mapping in detection and characterization of QTL.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.1250-1256
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• 2002

A novel fine-mapping method exploiting linkage disequilibrium (LD) was applied to better refine the quantitative trait loci (QTL) positions for milk production traits on bovine chromosome 14 in the pedigree comprising 22 paternal half-sib families of a Black-and-White Holstein-Friesian grand-daughter design in the Netherlands for a total of 1,034 sons. The chromosome map was constructed with the 31 genetic markers spanning 90 Kosambi cM with the average inter-marker distance of 3.5 cM. The linkage analyses, in which the effects of sire QTL alleles were assumed random and the random factor of the QTL allelic effects was incorporated into the Animal Model, found the QTL for milk, fat, and protein yield and fat and protein % with the Lod scores of 10.9, 2.3, 6.0, 25.4 and 3.2, respectively. The joint analyses including LD information by use of multi-marker haplotypes highly increased the evidence of the QTL (Lod scores were 25.1, 20.9, 11.0, 85.7 and 17.4 for the corresponding traits, respectively). The joint analyses including DGAT markers in the defined haplotypes again increased the QTL evidence and the most likely QTL positions for the five traits coincided with the position of the DGAT gene, supporting the hypothesis of the direct causal involvement of the DGAT gene. This study strongly indicates that the exploitation of LD information will allow additional gains of power and precision in finding and localising QTL of interest in livestock species, on the condition of high marker density around the QTL region.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.95 no.4
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• pp.483-494
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• 2006

We conducted QTL mapping for 6-year growths of open-pollinated half-sib progenies from a selected clone 7-1037 in Pinus taeda. With an AFLP marker analysis on haploid DNA samples from the megagametophytes of the open-pollinated seeds, we constructed 20 framework maps spanning a total of 1,869 cM in total length and 18.5 cM in an average interval length between markers. Composite interval mapping reveals that one QTL explains 5.9% of the total phenotypic variation of height, and three QTLs account for 3.9~5.6% of the variation of diameter at breast height (DBH). There are no correlations between the QTLs. The genetic effects of the QTLs are 39.6 cm in height and 7.20~9.41 mm in DBH, respectively, The average effects of gene substitution of the markers closely linked with the QTLs are 44.3 cm in height and 8.38~11.81 m in DBH. Under an assumption that the within-family heritability for the growth traits of loblolly pine is less than 0.2, the QTLs account for 26.8% of the additive genetic variance of the progenies. In terms of relative selection efficiency, the individual selection based on QTL markers could be 5 times as high as phenotypic selection. The results in this study indicate that the QTL mapping method with open-pollinated half-sib family could be more practical and applicable to the conventional seed orchard-based selection work than other mapping methods with a single full-sib family, in particular from the viewpoint that it can provide crucial information for within-family individual selection such as breeding value.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.457-462
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to detect QTL for carcass quality on bovine chromosome (BTA) 6 using a high density SNP map in a Hanwoo population. The data set comprised 45 sires and their 427 Hanwoo steers that were born between spring of 2005 and fall of 2007. The steers that were used for progeny testing in the Hanwoo Improvement Center in Seosan, Korea, were genotyped with the 2,535SNPs on BTA6 that were embedded in the Illumina bovine SNP 50K chip. Four different linkage disequilibrium (LD) mapping models were applied to detect significant SNPs for carcass quality traits; the fixed model with a single marker, the random model with a single marker, the random model with haplotype effects using two adjacent markers, and the random model at hidden state. A total of twelve QTL were detected, for which four, one, three and four SNPs were detected on BTA6 under the respective models (p<0.001). Among the detected QTL, four, two, five and one QTL were associated with carcass weight, backfat thickness, longissimus dorsi muscle area, and marbling score, respectively (p<0.001). Our results suggest that the use of multiple LD mapping approaches may be beneficial in increasing power to detect QTL given a limited sample size and magnitude of QTL effect.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.1505-1510
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• 2001

A method for mapping quantitative trait loci (QTL) was introduced incorporating the information of mixed progeny from complex pedigrees. The method consisted of two steps based on single marker analysis. The first step was to examine the marker-trait association with a mixed model considering common environmental effect and reversed QTL-marker linkage phase. The second step was to estimate QTL effects by a weighted least square analysis. A simulation study indicated that the method incorporating mixed progeny from multiple generations improved the accuracy of QTL detection. The influence of within-genotype variance and recombination rate on QTL analysis was further examined. Detecting a QTL with a large within-genotype variance was more difficult than with a small within-genotype variance. Most of the significant marker-QTL association was detectable when the recombination rate was less than 15%.