Genetic Markers Identification for Animal Production and Disease Resistance

Research into the genetic basis of various livestock traits has revealed a number of interesting findings:

• The Hedgehog and Wnt signaling pathways have been found to have important effects on mammary gland development in Bactrian camels.
• The Regulators of G Protein Signaling 16 Gene (RGS16) has been linked to fat-related traits in chickens.
• The HIAT1 gene has been associated with milk production and growth traits in various animals.
• 29 genes have been identified as related to prolificacy traits in Pishan Red Sheep and Qira Black Sheep living in the Taklimakan Desert environment.
• Several significant genetic markers have been identified as associated with wool quality characteristics in Rambouillet sheep.
• Myogenesis associated genes have been found to be expressed in the breast and thigh muscles of various poultry breeds.
• Four SNPs in SEC13 have been found to be significantly associated with milk yield, fat yield, protein yield or protein percentage in the first and second lactations.
• miRNAs in intrauterine exosomes have been found to be involved in embryo implantation and endometrial development.
• Several candidate lncRNAs and mRNAs have been identified as involved in stage-specific melanogenesis.
• Two distinct types of ancestral descent have been revealed in pigs from Anhui Province, along with potential selective sweep regions associated with domestication characteristics.
• Several key miRNA-mRNA targeting relationship pairs have been identified that could be used to further research miRNA regulation of unsaturated fatty acid synthesis in bovine adipocytes.
• 21 SNPs have been identified as potentially being used as genetic markers for genomic selection for the PKLR gene in Chinese Holstein cows.