Prediction of Genetic Resistance for Scrapie in Ungenotyped Sheep Using a Linear Animal Model

Selection based on scrapie genotypes could improve the genetic resistance for scrapie in sheep. However, in practice, few animals are genotyped. The objectives were to define numerical values of scrapie resistance genotypes and adjust for their non-additive genetic effect; evaluate prediction accuracy of ungenotyped animals using linear animal model; and predict and assess selection response based on estimated breeding values (EBV) of ungenotyped animals. The scrapie resistance (SR) was defined by ranking scrapie genotypes from low (0) to high (4) resistance based on genotype risk groups and was also adjusted for non-additive genetic effect of the haplotypes. Genotypes were simulated for 1,671,890 animals from pedigree. The simulated alleles were assigned to scrapie haplotypes in two scenarios of high (SR_h) and low (SR_l) resistance populations. A sample of 20,000 genotyped animals were used to predict ungenotyped using animal model. Prediction accuracies for ungenotyped animals for SR_h and SR_l were 0.60 and 0.54, and for allele content were from 0.41 to 0.71, respectively. Response to selection on SR_h and SR_l increased SR by 0.52 and 0.28, and on allele content from 0.13 to 0.50, respectively. In addition, the selected animals had large proportion of homozygous for the favorable haplotypes. Thus, pre-selection prior to genotyping could reduce genotyping costs for breeding programs. Using a linear animal model to predict SR makes better use of available information for the breeding programs.