Investigation of candidate regions influencing litter size in Danish Landrace sows

Selection for increased litter size has been one of the main objectives in Danish pig breeding since 1992. This selection has led to an average increase of 0.30 piglets/litter per year for Landrace and Yorkshire sows, resulting in an average litter size of 15.3 piglets born alive in 2007, with an SD of 3.5 piglets. The objective of this study was to investigate differences in identity by state relationships and allele effects associated with litter size across 17 selected microsatellite marker positions on chromosomes 11, 13, and 15. For this purpose, 357 Danish Landrace sows with high and low EBV for litter size were genotyped. An assignment test showed that 91 and 90% of the sows could be assigned correctly to the group of sows representing high and low EBV, respectively, based on genotype information. Allele effects were estimated separately for each marker by using deregressed EBV and a linear model that include both a polygenic and an allele effect. The investigated region on chromosome 13 was found to have a greater average identity by state relationship compared with the other regions, indicating that selection has taken place in this region. This is supported by an increased average allele effect of microsatellite alleles in the region. In spite of the apparent increased historical selection pressure on chromosome 13, fairly large variation in allele effects was observed, indicating that the markers within the region may be used for marker-assisted selection. However, substantial variation in allele effects was observed for several markers on all 3 investigated chromosomes, indicating that selection should preferably be based on several markers.