Genome-wide association studies of growth dynamics in quails Coturnix coturnix

Identification and mapping genes that determine economically important traits in farm animals, including poultry, is a key task of genomic selection aimed at improving the efficiency of animal husbandry. In recent years, genome-wide association studies have identified many important candidate genes in various farm animals. Of poultry species, a significant proportion of studies on the search and identification of quantitative trait loci (QTL) was carried out on chickens. On quails, such studies are relatively few primarily due to the lack of commercial chips, which makes it difficult to search for SNPs and identify genes associated with valuable traits. To date, there is little information on the quantitative traits loci reliably associated with productivity performance of quails. The meat productivity of quails, e.g., bodyweight and growth rate, depend on feeding and keeping conditions and is genetically determined by a set of QTL. This report submits the results of a genome-wide association study of the growth rate of F2 quails in a model resource population. We aimed to identify the QTL in the quail genome, to analyze the association of the found mutations with body weight parameters, and to characterize allelic variants in the studied F2 quail population. The F2 model resource population was obtained by crossing two breeds, the Japanese quails with a slow growth and the Texas quails with a fast growth. After filtering the data of GBS genotyping of the obtained F2 individuals ( n = 232), the 92686 SNPs were selected for further analysis. We used PLINK 1.9 software (https://www.cog-genomics.org/plink/) options geno 0.1, mind 0.2, and maf 0.05 to analyze the associations of whole genome genotyping data with the bodyweight which reflects growth and development of birds. High variability of bodyweight was found to be typical of the created resource population. In 1-day-old quails, this indicator varied from 5 to 11 g and averaged 9±0.1 g. At the age of 2, 4, 6, and 8 weeks, the bodyweight reached 69±1, 157±2, 219±2 and 252±2 g, respectively. GWAS identified 149 SNPs that were associated with bodyweight at a high statistical significance (p function show_eabstract() { $('#eabstract1').hide(); $('#eabstract2').show(); $('#eabstract_expand').hide(); }