Genome-Wide Association Studies of Body Weight and Average Daily Gain in Chinese Dongliao Black Pigs

In the domain of swine production, body weight (BW) and average daily gain (ADG) are recognized as the primary performance indicators. Nevertheless, the genetic architecture of ADG and BW in Dongliao black (DLB) pigs remains to be fully elucidated. In this study, we performed a genome-wide association analysis of BW, ADG, and body mass index (BMI) in 358 DLB pigs of different days of age. The genome-wide association study (GWAS) showed the following: (1) The most significant single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) detected for BW was on <i>Sus scrofa</i> chromosome (SSC) 11:100,808 (<i>p</i>-value = 1.16 × 10^-6) that was also the most significant SNP for ADG. (2) The most significant SNP associated with BMI was SSC17:51,463,521 (<i>p</i>-value = 5.16 × 10^-8). (3) SNPs SSC10:6,523,844 and SSC17:23,852,682 were identified in both BW and ADG. A meta-analysis was conducted on BW at different days and demonstrated SSC5:39,028,335 (<i>p</i>-value = 8.37 × 10^-6) which was not identified in the results of each single trait. The regions of two SNPs (SSC11:100,808, SSC4:10,703,277) exhibited considerable influence on both BW and ADG and the related regions were selected for linkage disequilibrium (LD) analyses that exhibited a notable linkage. In addition, several genes were identified that are associated with obesity and play roles in lipid metabolism, including <i>MACROD2</i>, <i>PHLPP2</i>, <i>CYP2E1</i>, and <i>STT3B</i>.