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Published on: December 23, 2018
Mapping quantitative trait loci for milk production and genetic polymorphisms of milk proteins in dairy sheep
Francis Barillet1, Juan-José Arranz, Antonello Carta
1Station d'amélioration des animaux, Institut national de la recherche agronomique, BP 27, 31326 Castanet-Tolosan Cedex, France. Barillet@toulouse.inra.fr
Abstract:
In this paper, we present recent advances in the molecular dissection of complex traits in dairy sheep and discuss their possible impact on breeding schemes. In the first step, we review the literature data on genetic polymorphisms and the effects of sheep alphas1-casein and beta-lactoglobulin loci. It is concluded that the results are rather inconsistent and cannot be used in dairy sheep selection. In a second step, we describe the strategy implemented in France, Italy and Spain taking advantage of the genetic maps for QTL detection. These studies were part of a European project, called "genesheepsafety", which investigated both milk production and functional traits. Preliminary QTL results are presented for production traits.
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