Abstract: Using classical selection to improve pork colour is expensive. This study investigated the potential application of genomics for improving pork colour. A total of 1,063 Canadian purebred Duroc pigs genotyped using Illumina PorcineSNP60 BeadChip were included and 253 of these had loin muscle Minolta L* measured. Pigs with EBV reliability of less than 0.10 were excluded from the analysis. The number of animals in training and validation sets (average reliability of EBVs) was 334 (0.27) and 83(0.30), respectively. Among the 62,163 SNPs on the panel, 1,328 SNPs on the sex chromosomes and 15,669 SNPs with MAF<0.05 were excluded. The gebv software [1] was used to compute the GEBVs following the equivalent model of VanRaden [2]. Direct Genomic Breeding Values (DGVs) of validation animals were correlated with the national EBVs of May 2012. The observed squared correlation of DGVs for validation animals (0.36) was very promising considering that most meat quality traits cannot be measured on a live pig. Large-scale application of genomics for improving pork colour is feasible. However, the availability of an affordable lower density SNP panel associated with imputation to 60K panel may be necessary to encourage the uptake of this new technology.

References:

[1] Sargolzaei, M. et al. (2009). Dairy Cattle Breeding and Genetics Committee Meeting, October 7, University of Guelph, ON.

[2] VanRaden, P.M. (2008). J. Dairy Science 91 (11): 4414-4423.