Mapping genomic regions associated with resistance to infectious diseases in Ethiopian chicken

Androniki Psifidi, Georgios Banos, Oswald Matika, Takele T Desta, J. Bettridge, David Hume, Tadelle Dessie, R. Christley, P. Wigley, Olivier Hanotte, Peter Kaiser

Research output: Contribution to conferenceAbstractpeer-review

Abstract

Poultry play an important role in the agriculture of many African countries, including Ethiopia. The majority of chickens are indigenous, well adapted to the local environment and raised in scavenging systems. Although these birds are resilient to common diseases, routine vaccination and biosecurity measures are rarely applied and infectious diseases remain a major cause of mortality and reduced productivity. Breeding for increased resistance to infectious diseases offers potentially a sustainable solution. Data were collected for five major
infectious diseases: oocyst counts for Eimeria spp and antibody titres for Infectious Bursal disease, Mareks’ disease, Fowl Cholera and Fowl Typhoid from indigenous chickens raised in two distinct regions, Horro (n=384) and Jarso (n=376) in Ethiopia. All birds were genotyped with a 580K high density whole-genome DNA array. Principal component analysis (PCA), variance component analyses and genome wide association studies (GWAS) were performed. PCA showed that the chickens from the two regions are genetically distinct.
Estimates of heritability were intermediate (0.23-0.45) for all disease phenotypes with the exception of antibody responses to Fowl Typhoid where the estimate was low (0.06). GWAS identified genomic markers significantly associated with response to infectious diseases at genome-wide and chromosome-wide level. Some of the putative QTL regions for antibody responses were common for different diseases. A search for putative candidate genes around the significant markers revealed the presence of many genes involved in immune response. These results underpin the potential of genetic selection for enhanced disease resistance across Ethiopian indigenous chicken ecotypes.
Original languageEnglish
Pages418
Number of pages1
Publication statusPublished - 29 Aug 2016
EventEAAP 2016 67th Annual Meeting of the European Federation of Animal Science - Ireland, Belfast, United Kingdom
Duration: 29 Aug 20162 Sept 2016

Conference

ConferenceEAAP 2016 67th Annual Meeting of the European Federation of Animal Science
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityBelfast
Period29/08/162/09/16

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