Chang-Hee Do

Study on the Prolactin Receptor 3 (PRLR3) Gene and the Retinol-binding Protein 4 (RBP4) Gene as Candidate Genes for Production Traits in Berkshire Pigs

To investigate the influence of the prolactin receptor 3 (PRLR3) gene and the retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) gene on the production traits of swine, genotyping was performed on 156 and 141 Berkshire pigs, respectively, that were carefully selected for economic traits. The frequencies of allele A in the PRLR3 locus and allele B in the RBP4 locus were 0.50 and 0.42, respectively. Neither locus was in the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. After a genotype was assigned to the individuals whose parents had the homozygous genotype, a statistical analysis was conducted for 291 pigs. The animals with the PRLR3 and RBP4 genotypes included 182 and 227 head, respectively. Even though the genotypic effects of PRLR3 (p<0.05) and RBP4 (p<0.01) had a significant influence on the pigs’ back fat thickness, the interaction of both genes was not highly significant in terms of the back fat thickness (p = 0.1235). While the estimated epistasis effects of aaBB and aaBb decreased the back fat thickness and reduced the growth rate, the effects of AAbb and aabb increased the growth rate. Despite the insignificant difference in the PRLR genotypes in terms of the days to 90 kg and the average daily gain, the back fat thickness showed a significant difference (p<0.05), and the additive effect of allele A and the dominant effect of the hetero-genotype were −0.377 and 1.206 mm, respectively. The RBP4 genotypes had a very significant effect (p<0.01) on the back fat thickness, the days to 90 kg, and the average daily gain. The additive effects of allele B of the RBP4 locus on the back fat thickness, the days to 90 kg, and the average daily gain were 0.70 mm, −1.3 days and 6.2 g, respectively. Moreover, the dominant effects of the heterozygote for those traits were 0.63 mm, 9.9 days and −45.0 g, respectively. Allele A of the PRLR3 locus favorably influenced the back fat thickness, the days to 90 kg of the body weight, and the average daily gain and its dominant effect unfavorably influenced those traits. Allele B of RBP4 showed an incremental growth rate and back fat thickness, which could lower the lean meat percentage in the carcass. The RBP4 hetero-genotype negatively affected the pork production. These results strongly imply that the selection of allele A of PRLR3 and allele B of RBP4 would produce highly productive pigs in the Berkshire breed. Careful selection of allele B of RBP4 is required because of the increase in the back fat thickness.

Genetic Relationship of Productive Life, Production and Type Traits of Korean Holsteins at Early Lactations.

The present study was performed to study the genetic relationship of productive life with production and type traits of Korean Holsteins at first three lactations. The data for the analysis from 56,054, 28,997, and 11,816 animals of first, second and third parity cows which were born from 2006 to 2011 were collected by Dairy Cattle Improvement Center, National Agricultural Co-operative Federation. Milk, protein and fat yields adjusted for 305 days and average somatic cell score considered as production traits and analyzed type traits were stature, strength, body depth, dairy form, rump angle, rump width, rear leg side view, foot angle, front attachment placement, rear attachment height, rear attachment width, udder cleft, udder depth, front teat placement and front teat length. A multi trait genetic analysis was performed using Wombat program with restricted maximum likelihood animal model composed of fixed effect of birth year, farm and the random effect of animal and random residual effect according to the traits. Heritability estimates of productive life were between 0.06 and 0.13. Genetic and phenotypic correlations between production and productive life traits ranged from 0.35 to 0.04 for milk, 0.16 to 0.05 for protein and 0.18 to 0.02 f 15-0034 (2nd) 150520 or fat. Somatic cells score showed a negative genetic and phenotypic correlation with productive life and also udder type traits, indicating that the selection for higher udder traits will likely to improve resistance to mastitis and persistence in the herd. Among all dairy form type traits, udder characters such as udder cleft showed a significant relationship with productive life. However, a specific change of heritabilities or correlations were not observed with the change of parity. Moreover, further studies are needed to further confirm the significance of the above traits and the effect of parity on above relationships in order to minimize both voluntary and involuntary culling rates while improving herd health and maintaining high yielding dairy cows.

Adjustment of lactation number and stage on informal linear type traits of Holstein dairy cattle.

A total of 4,323,781 records for informal 16 primary linear descriptive traits of dairy cows in Holstein breed from 1988 to 2007 in USA were analyzed to estimate adjustment factors for lactation number and stage. While all factors in the model were highly significant (P < 0.01), major influences on linear type traits were due to lactation number and stage. The frequencies of lactation number 1 through 6 were 58.6, 22.0, 11.8, 4.8, 2.1, and 0.8%, respectively. Further, the frequencies of lactation stage were 0.7, 76.9, 15.3, 4.9, and 2.1%, respectively, for springing, early, medium, late, and dry. To adjust 16 linear traits (stature, dairy form, strength, body depth, rump width, rump angle, legs rear view, leg set, foot angle, fore udder, rear udder height, rear udder width, udder support, udder depth, and front teat placement), additive and multiplicative adjustment factors of lactation number (lactations 2 to 4) and stage (springing, medium, late and dry) were estimated with the solutions in the generalized linear model, assigning lactation 1 and stage early as base class. Additive adjustment factors of lactation number ranged from 1.23 to 2.908, while multiplicative factors ranged from 0.853 to 2.207. Further, additive and multiplicative adjustment factors for lactation stage ranged from 0.668 to 0.785, and from 0.891 to 1.154. Application of adjustment factors to 20 randomly sampled sub-data sets produced the results that additive adjustment factors for both lactation number and stage reduced more mean square of lactation number and stage over 16 linear traits than any combination of adjustments, and leaded additive adjustment factors for both lactation number and stage as a choice of methods for adjustment of informal 16 primary linear type traits collected by classifiers of AI studs.

Interaction between Nutrient Density Diets and Sex on Carcass and Quality Characteristics in Finishing Pigs

The present study was undertaken to investigate the effects of nutrient density diets and sex on carcass and pork quality characteristics in finishing pigs. A total of 96 pigs(58.04 6.85 kg) were divided into 2 groups(gilts and barrows), each sex group was assigned to 3 nutrient density(high : 18.5%, middle : 16.0% and low: 14.0% CP, respectively) and raised up to 1l0kg live weight. Each treatment had four replicates with three or five pigs per replicate. The treatments comprised the feeding regimes of 1) the low density diet for 60 days, 2) the middle nutrient density diet for the 30 days followed by a low nutrient density diet for the remaining 30 days and 3) the high nutrient density diet for the 30 days followed by a middle nutrient density diet for the remaining 30 days. Pigs were conventionally slaughtered, and then chilled overnight. Carcass characteristics and grades were determined on those carcasses, and pork loin muscle was removed from each left side at 5th to 13th rib for quality evaluation were evaluated. There were no differences in the carcass weight between sex and nutrient density. Dressing percent of L-L(gilts) treatment was significantly higher than that of other treatments(P

The Development of Adjustment Coefficients for Linear Classifications in the Korean Holstein Dairy Cattle

젖소의 선형심사형질은 젖소의 생물학적 변이를 심사자의 직관에 의하여 변이의 정도에 따라 점수를 부여한다. 심사형질에 대한 정의에 의하여 연령과 비유기에 상관없이 변이의 정도를 수치화 하기 때문에 형질에 따라서 필연적으로 연령과 비유기의 영향을 받을 수밖에 없다. 본 연구에서는 연령과 비유기가 선형심사형질에 미치는 영향을 조사하고 그를 보정하기 위한 보정계수를 추정하였다. 키 강건성, 체심, 엉덩이 너비, 뒷다리 옆모양과 앞유방 부착이 연령에 따라 증가 또는 감소하는 경향을 보이면서 크게 영향 받는 것으로 조사되었으며, 유용성, 뒷유방 높이, 뒷유방 너비와 정중제인대는 비유기에 따라 영향을 받았다. 유방깊이는 연령과 비유기 두 가지 요인 모두로부터 영향을 받았다. 추정된 보정 계수에 의한 각각의 보정계수를 적용한 결과 연령과 비유기에 영향 받는 모든 형질에서 분만년월, 심사자 등의 변이에는 작은 영향을 미치며, 보정하고자 하는 요인의 변이를 크게 줄여 보정효과가 양호한 것으로 나타났다. 유방깊이는 연령과 비유기에 대한 보정계수를 동시에 적용한 결과 두 요인 모두에서 변이를 크게 줄였다. 【The environmental effects were studied to estimate age and lactation stage adjustment coefficients in the primary linear traits of Holstein dairy cattle in Korea. Calving year month, classifier, age-month at classification and lactation stage were the environmental factors which significantly affected the most of linear traits at the level of 0.01. F values of Stature, strength, body depth, thurl with and rear leg side view were relatively higher in the effects of age-month, and dairy form, rear udder height, rear udder width, and udder cleft had relatively higher F values in the effects of lactation stage. Udder depth were affected highly by both age-month and lactation stage. Through the least square means of traits and the interpolation and smoothing obtained by the regression analysis of log and exponential transformed adjustment coefficients, age-month and lactation stage coefficients were estimated, and applied to real data to check the variation in the age-month and lactation stage effects. The estimated mean squares showed that the variation in all the linear traits significantly were decreased for the adjusted factors without the significant changes of variation in calving year month and classifier. That udder depth adjusted for both the age-month and lactation stage resulted in the decreases of variation in the both effects.】

Characterization of the Prolactin Receptor 3(PRLR3) and Retinol-Binding Protein 4(RBP4) Genes in the Birth Weight and Early Growth of Berkshire Pigs

To investigate the influences of candidate genes on the birth weight and the early stages of life, genotyping of the prolactin receptor 3 (PRLR3) and retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) genes was performed in 156 and 141 Berkshire pigs, respectively. The frequency of both PRLR3 alleles A and a was 0.50. The frequencies of the RBP4 alleles B and b were 0.42 and 0.58, respectively. Neither locus was in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. No significant associations of the PRLR3 alleles with birth or weaning weights and of the RBP4 alleles with birth weight were observed. The proportions of the phenotype variances due to the genotypes of PRLR3 in the feeder weights was 4.0% and those of RBP4 in the weaning and feeder weights were 11.9 and 3.3%, respectively (P < 0.05). The dominance effect of PRLR3 and RBP4 on feeder weights was 2.40 and 1.86 kg, respectively (P < 0.01). The additive and dominance effects of RBP4 on weaning weights were 0.332 and 0.682 kg, respectively (P < 0.01). Even if no significant epistasis of PRLR3 and RBP4 was detected, a considerable trend of consistent positive epistasis estimates of AA/BB and Aa/Bb was observed for all traits. The results of this study may have a considerable impact on early-stage growth by both loci, and a selection strategy should be designed separately for each marker in Berkshire pigs. (Key words : Prolactin receptor, Retinol-binding protein, Candidate genes)

A Study on the Prolactin Receptor 3 (PRLR3) Gene and the Retinol-binding Protein 4 (RBP4) Gene as Candidate Genes for Growth and Litter Size Traits of Berkshire in Korea

Two diallelic markers at candidate gene loci, the prolactin receptor 3 (PRLR3) gene and the retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) gene were evaluated for their association with growth and litter size traits in Berkshire. Genetic evaluation was conducted for 5,919 pigs with pedigree information, which included 3,480 growth performance records and 775 litter size records of 224 sows. From the same herd, genotyping was carried out on 144 and 156 animals for PRLR3 and RBP4, respectively. After assigning a genotype to subjects in which both parents had a homozygous genotype, numbers of genotyped animals increased to 474 and 338, for the PRLR3 gene and RBP4 gene, respectively. The genotype effects of two markers were estimated with breeding values of the genotyped animals. The additive effects of total number of piglets born and number of piglets born alive in the PRLR3 locus were -0.28 and -0.13, respectively. The dominance effect of the RBP4 locus on average daily gain was -10.58 g. However, the polymorphism of the RBP4 locus in total number of piglets born and number of piglets born alive has shown -0.34 and -0.33 of the additive genetic effects. In view of the results, MAS (marker-assisted selection) favoring B alleles of RBP4 and PRLR3 loci could potentially accelerate the rate of the genetic improvement in the litter size traits.

Estimation of Genetic Parameter for Linear Type Traits in Holstein Dairy Cattle in Korea

본 연구는 1998부터 2007년도까지 수집된 국내 홀스타인종 22,175두의 15개 형질에 대한 332,625개의 선형심사 점수, 22,175개의 최종점수와 84,612개의 혈통정보를 이용하여 유전모수를 추정하기 위해 실시하였다. 유전 및 오차 분산-공분산은 16개 형질에서 2개 형질씩 짝을 지어 총 225개 형질조합에 대하여 이형질(二形...