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Promising Loci and Genes for Yolk and Ovary Weight in Chickens Revealed by a Genome-Wide Association Study

Because it serves as the cytoplasm of the oocyte and provides a large amount of reserves, the egg yolk has biological significance for developing embryos. The ovary and its hierarchy of follicles are the main reproductive organs responsible for yolk deposition in chickens. However, the genetic archi...

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Autores principales: Sun, Congjiao, Lu, Jian, Yi, Guoqiang, Yuan, Jingwei, Duan, Zhongyi, Qu, Lujiang, Xu, Guiyun, Wang, Kehua, Yang, Ning
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4558091/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26332579
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137145
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author Sun, Congjiao
Lu, Jian
Yi, Guoqiang
Yuan, Jingwei
Duan, Zhongyi
Qu, Lujiang
Xu, Guiyun
Wang, Kehua
Yang, Ning
author_facet Sun, Congjiao
Lu, Jian
Yi, Guoqiang
Yuan, Jingwei
Duan, Zhongyi
Qu, Lujiang
Xu, Guiyun
Wang, Kehua
Yang, Ning
author_sort Sun, Congjiao
collection PubMed
description Because it serves as the cytoplasm of the oocyte and provides a large amount of reserves, the egg yolk has biological significance for developing embryos. The ovary and its hierarchy of follicles are the main reproductive organs responsible for yolk deposition in chickens. However, the genetic architecture underlying the yolk and ovarian follicle weights remains elusive. Here, we measured the yolk weight (YW) at 11 age points from onset of egg laying to 72 weeks of age and measured the follicle weight (FW) and ovary weight (OW) at 73 weeks as part of a comprehensive genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 1,534 F(2) hens derived from reciprocal crosses between White Leghorn (WL) and Dongxiang chickens (DX). For all ages, YWs exhibited moderate single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based heritability estimates (0.25–0.38), while the estimates for FW (0.16) and OW (0.20) were relatively low. Independent univariate genome-wide screens for each trait identified 12, 3, and 31 novel significant associations with YW, FW, and OW, respectively. A list of candidate genes such as ZAR1, STARD13, ACER1b, ACSBG2, and DHRS12 were identified for having a plausible function in yolk and follicle development. These genes are important to the initiation of embryogenesis, lipid transport, lipoprotein synthesis, lipid droplet promotion, and steroid hormone metabolism, respectively. Our study provides for the first time a genome-wide association (GWA) analysis for follicle and ovary weight. Identification of the promising loci as well as potential candidate genes will greatly advance our understanding of the genetic basis underlying dynamic yolk weight and ovarian follicle development and has practical significance in breeding programs for the alteration of yolk weight at different age points.
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spelling pubmed-45580912015-09-10 Promising Loci and Genes for Yolk and Ovary Weight in Chickens Revealed by a Genome-Wide Association Study Sun, Congjiao Lu, Jian Yi, Guoqiang Yuan, Jingwei Duan, Zhongyi Qu, Lujiang Xu, Guiyun Wang, Kehua Yang, Ning PLoS One Research Article Because it serves as the cytoplasm of the oocyte and provides a large amount of reserves, the egg yolk has biological significance for developing embryos. The ovary and its hierarchy of follicles are the main reproductive organs responsible for yolk deposition in chickens. However, the genetic architecture underlying the yolk and ovarian follicle weights remains elusive. Here, we measured the yolk weight (YW) at 11 age points from onset of egg laying to 72 weeks of age and measured the follicle weight (FW) and ovary weight (OW) at 73 weeks as part of a comprehensive genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 1,534 F(2) hens derived from reciprocal crosses between White Leghorn (WL) and Dongxiang chickens (DX). For all ages, YWs exhibited moderate single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based heritability estimates (0.25–0.38), while the estimates for FW (0.16) and OW (0.20) were relatively low. Independent univariate genome-wide screens for each trait identified 12, 3, and 31 novel significant associations with YW, FW, and OW, respectively. A list of candidate genes such as ZAR1, STARD13, ACER1b, ACSBG2, and DHRS12 were identified for having a plausible function in yolk and follicle development. These genes are important to the initiation of embryogenesis, lipid transport, lipoprotein synthesis, lipid droplet promotion, and steroid hormone metabolism, respectively. Our study provides for the first time a genome-wide association (GWA) analysis for follicle and ovary weight. Identification of the promising loci as well as potential candidate genes will greatly advance our understanding of the genetic basis underlying dynamic yolk weight and ovarian follicle development and has practical significance in breeding programs for the alteration of yolk weight at different age points. Public Library of Science 2015-09-02 /pmc/articles/PMC4558091/ /pubmed/26332579 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137145 Text en © 2015 Sun et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Sun, Congjiao
Lu, Jian
Yi, Guoqiang
Yuan, Jingwei
Duan, Zhongyi
Qu, Lujiang
Xu, Guiyun
Wang, Kehua
Yang, Ning
Promising Loci and Genes for Yolk and Ovary Weight in Chickens Revealed by a Genome-Wide Association Study
title Promising Loci and Genes for Yolk and Ovary Weight in Chickens Revealed by a Genome-Wide Association Study
title_full Promising Loci and Genes for Yolk and Ovary Weight in Chickens Revealed by a Genome-Wide Association Study
title_fullStr Promising Loci and Genes for Yolk and Ovary Weight in Chickens Revealed by a Genome-Wide Association Study
title_full_unstemmed Promising Loci and Genes for Yolk and Ovary Weight in Chickens Revealed by a Genome-Wide Association Study
title_short Promising Loci and Genes for Yolk and Ovary Weight in Chickens Revealed by a Genome-Wide Association Study
title_sort promising loci and genes for yolk and ovary weight in chickens revealed by a genome-wide association study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4558091/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26332579
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137145
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