Genome-wide association study for sow lifetime productivity related traits in a Landrace purebred population

Improvement of sow lifetime productivity (SLP) is expected to increase farm performance and profitability. Many genes and environmental factors influence these complex traits. To identify quantitative trait loci and positional candidate genes for SLP-related traits, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) using 656 Landrace purebred pigs from a commercial breeding stock farm. All sows in the study population were genotyped with the Illumina Porcine SNP60 BeadChip, and GWAS analyzed by linear mixed-effects model based association analysis using the GCTA program. Five genome-wide suggestive single nucleotide polymorphism markers were identified for the lifetime total number of born piglets and final parity. All five of these markers were highly associated with other SLP-related traits, and all these markers were located within or near one particular gene, MEGF11 (multiple epidermal growth factor-like domains protein 11), on chromosome 1. This new positional candidate gene could contribute to increased sow lifetime productivity after the validation in other populations.