On the distance of genetic relationships and the accuracy of genomic prediction in pig breeding.

Theo He Meuwissen,Eli Grindflek,Jorgen Odegard,Ina Andersen-Ranberg

doi:10.1186/1297-9686-46-49

Abstract

BackgroundWith the advent of genomic selection, alternative relationship matrices are used in animal breeding, which vary in their coverage of distant relationships due to old common ancestors. Relationships based on pedigree (A) and linkage analysis (GLA) cover only recent relationships because of the limited depth of the known pedigree. Relationships based on identity-by-state (G) include relationships up to the age of the SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) mutations. We hypothesised that the latter relationships were too old, since QTL (quantitative trait locus) mutations for traits under selection were probably more recent than the SNPs on a chip, which are typically selected for high minor allele frequency. In addition, A and GLA relationships are too recent to cover genetic differences accurately. Thus, we devised a relationship matrix that considered intermediate-aged relationships and compared all these relationship matrices for their accuracy of genomic prediction in a pig breeding situation.MethodsHaplotypes were constructed and used to build a haplotype-based relationship matrix (GH), which considers more intermediate-aged relationships, since haplotypes recombine more quickly than SNPs mutate. Dense genotypes (38 453 SNPs) on 3250 elite breeding pigs were combined with phenotypes for growth rate (2668 records), lean meat percentage (2618), weight at three weeks of age (7387) and number of teats (5851) to estimate breeding values for all animals in the pedigree (8187 animals) using the aforementioned relationship matrices. Phenotypes on the youngest 424 to 486 animals were masked and predicted in order to assess the accuracy of the alternative genomic predictions.ResultsCorrelations between the relationships and regressions of older on younger relationships revealed that the age of the relationships increased in the order A, GLA, GH and G. Use of genomic relationship matrices yielded significantly higher prediction accuracies than A. GH and G, differed not significantly, but were significantly more accurate than GLA.ConclusionsOur hypothesis that intermediate-aged relationships yield more accurate genomic predictions than G was confirmed for two of four traits, but these results were not statistically significant. Use of estimated genotype probabilities for ungenotyped animals proved to be an efficient method to include the phenotypes of ungenotyped animals.

Highlights

With the advent of genomic selection, alternative relationship matrices are used in animal breeding, which vary in their coverage of distant relationships due to old common ancestors
Base populations are usually quite recent, because old pedigrees may not be available, or are rather incomplete, or because numerator relationships (A) reduce quickly over generations and Best Linear Unbiased Prediction of Breeding Values based on A (ABLUP-EBV) are not much affected by information from old ancestors
If markers are selected based on high minor allele frequencies (MAF), marker mutations may well predate QTL mutations that affect traits of interest, because traits of interest have been under selection, and old mutations that affect them were either lost or fixed

Summary

Introduction

With the advent of genomic selection, alternative relationship matrices are used in animal breeding, which vary in their coverage of distant relationships due to old common ancestors. Relationships based on identity-by-state (G) include relationships up to the age of the SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) mutations We hypothesised that the latter relationships were too old, since QTL (quantitative trait locus) mutations for traits under selection were probably more recent than the SNPs on a chip, which are typically selected for high minor allele frequency. When the markers on the SNP panel were selected based on having high minor allele frequencies (MAF), the SNP markers reflect rather old mutations. This is because all mutations start at a low frequency, and most mutations are lost before reaching substantial allele frequencies. Even for neutral loci, e.g. for a neutral trait, there will be relatively more low MAF genes than on the SNP-chip

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