Integrating Quantitative Trait Loci (QTLs) through Meta-QTL (MQTL) Analysis to Facilitate Identification of Relationships between Phenotype and Genotype

The poultry industry plays a vital role in providing food worldwide and contributes significantly to the economy. It is projected that poultry meat will be the most popular meat choice in the next 10 to 20 years. In the past few years, the implementation of genomic methods in chicken breeding programs has emerged as a successful strategy for driving progress in the poultry breeding sector. In recent decades, the use of animal breeding and selection methods has experienced a substantial increase. The examination and utilization of animal breeding and selection has considerably expanded, leading to a heightened comprehension of the economically valuable quantitative characteristics in chickens. Economic traits in chickens, such as growth rate and feed conversion, are not determined by a single gene but rather are influenced by multiple physiological factors. Thus, it presents a challenge to determine potential genes that are linked to particular characteristics. A variety of chicken phenotypic traits have been investigated through the analysis of quantitative trait loci (QTLs). To address this issue, a meta-analysis of QTL can be used to analyze a large number of independent experiments and identify the number and location of QTLs. The effectiveness of marker-assisted breeding efforts can be greatly improved by incorporating high-certainty candidate genes (CGs) and prioritizing markers as MQTLs. In this study, we will investigate the use of various molecular methods and QTL meta-analysis to study different traits in chicken.