Year: 2018 | Month: August | Volume 8 | Issue 2
Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) Mapping and its Applications in Animal Traits
Abstract:
Many genes responsible for polygenic inheritance of particular characteristics are scattered around the genome. Their position is known as quantitative trait loci (QTL). It is the chromosome site at which a gene / group of genes affecting a quantitative trait is located. In case of disease susceptibility, it is useful to identify the individual genes to understand their normal function and to design accurate medical treatments. In case of animal and plant breeding it would be useful to identify young individuals with favourable alleles without waiting for their expression at maturity. Those with favourable genotype could be removed earlier from selective breeding programs, while potentially high quality types could be cloned immediately. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are becoming increasingly popular in genetic research, and they are an excellent complement to QTL mapping. Whereas, QTL contain many linked genes, which are challenging to separate. GWAS produce many unlinked individual genes or even nucleotides, but these studies are riddled with large expected numbers of false positives. Moreover, GWAS remain limited to organisms with genomic resources. Combination of these two techniques may provide the ultimate deliverable: individual genes or even nucleotides that contribute to the phenotype of interest.
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