263. Genomic prediction of purebred Merinos from an admixed terminal population using selected sequence variants

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate genomic prediction accuracy of meat quality traits in purebred Merinos from an admixed terminal sire breed population, including terminal and Merino crosses, using sequence variants selected in the admixed terminal sire breed population. Results showed an increase in genomic prediction accuracy for carcase fat in Merinos compared to using a common 50k genotypes by using significant SNPs selected from the admixed population. This was supported by GWAS results indicating several common significant QTL regions for carcase fat between the two populations. Results for intramuscular fat showed a decrease in prediction accuracy in Merinos by using significant SNPs selected from the admixed population and in line with this GWAS showed fewer significant common QTL regions between the two populations. Results of this study suggest that improvement in the accuracy of acrosspopulation genomic prediction by using selected sequence variants varies between traits and depends on the degree of similarity between populations at significant chromosomal regions affecting the trait.