Abstract:

This study was conducted for the Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) related to tenderness to estimate the number and refine the positions of QTL with meta-analysis. Tenderness QTL were collected and projected to the swine linkage map of USDA-MARC 2.0 to establish an integrated map. Meta-QTL was obtained by meta-analysis which reduced the confidence intervals. Positions of candidate genes and meta-QTL obtained in this study were compared to reckon the precision of meta-QTL. With the software BioMercator2.1, 99 tenderness QTL were collected from 23 published papers since 2001 and an integrated map was established. 16 meta-QTL as well as their corresponding markers were obtained. The confidence intervals of meta-QTL, with 8 of which were shrunk more than 50% and 6 of which were less than 10 cM, ranged from 2.42 cM to 25.18 cM. The confidence interval of MQTL1 and MQTL2 was only 2.42 cM and 3.22 cM, and was merged with 9 and 20 initial QTL, respectively. Projected to the integrated map, the position of FABP3, MYPN and ANK1 gene was in the confidence interval of MQTL5, MQTL12 and MQTL16. These results could lead to more precise QTL position estimates, and offered a basis for gene mining and molecular breeding in swine.