Genetic parameters of immune traits for Landrace and Large White pig breeds.

Improving the immunocompetence towards pathogens represents a desirable objective of breeding strategies to increase resilience. However, the immune system is complex and the genetic foundation of the underlying components is not yet clarified. In the present study, we focused on 22 blood parameters of 1,144 Landrace (LR) and Large White (LW) piglets at the age of 6-7 weeks.

Comparison of the choice of animals for re-sequencing in two maternal pig lines.

Next-generation sequencing is a promising approach for the detection of causal variants within previously identified quantitative trait loci. Because of the costs of re-sequencing experiments, this application is currently mainly restricted to subsets of animals from already genotyped populations. Imputation from a lower to a higher marker density could represent a useful complementary approach.

Genome-wide associations for immune traits in two maternal pig lines.

Background: In recent years, animal welfare and health has become more and more important in pig breeding. So far, numerous parameters have been considered as important biomarkers, especially in the immune reaction and inflammation. Previous studies have shown moderate to high heritabilities in most of these traits.