Predictive genome-wide association and economic analyses of pooled DNA in a commercial feedlot setting

Abstract

Understanding the genetic profile of cattle allows producers to make predictions of performance and disease. However, it is often fiscally and logistically unfeasible for commercial cattle producers to individually genotype animals. As such, our objec­tive was to utilize prospectively-pooled DNA from commercial feedlot cattle for a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of ec­onomically-important carcass traits and measure the economic efficiency of this technique.