Evaluation of 65K SNPs array in the racing line of Quarter Horses and imputation efficiency between the arrays of 54 and 65K

• Grant number: 15/06347-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2015
• End date: June 30, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Animal Husbandry - Genetics and Improvement of Domestic Animals
• Principal Investigator: Rogério Abdallah Curi
• Grantee: Gabriel Mantelato Rogatto
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia (FMVZ). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Different selection objectives within the Quarter Horse breed led to the formation of groups with distinct skills, including the racing, conformation and cutting lines. With a smaller population size, but of great economic representativeness, the racing line shows a better performance in short-distance races than any other line or breed, and are the fastest horses and one of the fastest animals in the world. The cutting line is destined for functional tests, exploring skills such as agility and obedience which are important for cattle management in the field. Designed to identify SNPs and genes that contribute to traits of interest in the major horse breeds raised today in the world, the Equine SNP50 BeadChip (Illumina Inc., USA), represented a powerful platform for selection genetic improvement of this species. Already in its second generation, the new equine SNP chip (Equine SNP70 BeadChip, Illumina Inc., USA) has approximately 65,000 SNPs (65K), of which 19,000 are new markers and 45,000 were validated in Equine SNP50 BeadChip. This research will have the following objectives: (1) assess, mainly through the MAF (minor allele frequency), loss of informative SNPs and, consequently, the potential of application of the Equine SNP70 BeadChip (65K) in racing Quarter Horses; (2) evaluate the efficiency of the genotypes imputation from Equine SNP50 BeadChip (54K) and the Equine SNP70 BeadChip (65K) using racing and cutting Quarter Horses.