Submitted to: Hoard's Dairyman
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: December 10, 1996
Publication Date: N/A
Technical Abstract:
Marker-assisted selection (MAS) uses genetic marker information to predict an animal's production potential and will provide additional selection information for progeny testing. With the production of genetic maps, the tools now exist to begin the search for chromosomal regions affecting economic traits (quantitative trait loci or QTL), which is the first step toward MAS. Our first study involved the search for QTL affecting mastitis in the U.S. Holstein population. Based on the results from twenty genetic markers, the most likely position of a mastitis QTL lies on chromosome 23, near the "histocompatibility" genes that are important in immune system functions. While these results are informative, additional studies must be conducted to verify this QTL before it should be used in selection programs.
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