Effects of Parity and Litter Size on the Birth Weight of Inbred Mice

Reading, Anthony

doi:10.2307/1378075

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The smaller birth size in firstborns shown here has been observed in not only humans but also other mammals such as mice (25), sheep (26), and seals (27). However, this early growth deficit was more than compensated for such that, by 6 months, the firstborns had become heavier and taller than later borns, with a height difference of 2.6 cm persisting at 13.3 years.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Associations of Birth Order With Early Growth and Adolescent Height, Body Composition, and Blood Pressure: Prospective Birth Cohort From Brazil

Wells

Hallal²,

Reichert³

et al. 2011

American Journal of Epidemiology

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Birth weight has been inversely associated with later blood pressure. Firstborns tend to have lower birth weight than their later-born peers, but the long-term consequences remain unclear. The study objective was to investigate differences between firstborn and later-born individuals in early growth patterns, body composition, and blood pressure in Brazilian adolescents. The authors studied 453 adolescents aged 13.3 years from the prospective 1993 Pelotas Birth Cohort. Anthropometry, blood pressure, physical activity by accelerometry, and body composition by deuterium were measured. Firstborns (n = 143) had significantly lower birth weight than later borns (n = 310). At 4 years, firstborns had significantly greater weight and height, indicating a substantial overshoot in catch-up growth. In adolescence, firstborns had significantly greater height and blood pressure and a lower activity level. The difference in systolic blood pressure could be attributed to variability in early growth and that in diastolic blood pressure to reduced physical activity. The magnitude of increased blood pressure is clinically significant; hence, birth order is an important developmental predictor of cardiovascular risk in this population. Firstborns may be more sensitive to environmental factors that promote catch-up growth, and this information could potentially be used in nutritional management to prevent catch-up “overshoot.”

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Associations of Birth Order With Early Growth and Adolescent Height, Body Composition, and Blood Pressure: Prospective Birth Cohort From Brazil

Wells

Hallal²,

Reichert³

et al. 2011

American Journal of Epidemiology

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“…This advances on previous studies that generally demonstrated a genetic basis for such interactions (for example, Merilä and Fry, 1998). In addition, our study confirms the existence of a substantial main effect of litter size on weight such that average weight was inversely proportional to litter size (for example, Reading, 1966;Epstein, 1978). The effects of litter size on weight decrease over time but even at week 10 are still significant: body weight at week 10 is affected by litter size at weaning with a standardized effect of À0.19, which would cause a reduction of 2.6% of weight comparing pups with nine litter mates at weaning to those that had five litter mates.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Genotype-dependent responses to levels of sibling competition over maternal resources in mice

2011

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Research on phenotypic plasticity has often focused on how a given genotype responds to the changing physical environments such as temperature or diet. However, for many species the social environment has an equally important role because of competition for resources. During early development, the level of competition for limited (maternally provided) resources will often depend critically on the number of siblings. Therefore, competition among siblings should drive the evolution of genes that allow flexible responses to realized levels of competition and maternal resource availability. However, it is unknown whether genetically based differences between individuals exist in their response to the social environment that affect their future development. Using a quantitative trait locus approach in an experimental population of mice we demonstrate that effects of sibling number on body weight depend on individual genotype at seven loci, over and above the general negative litter size effect. Overall, these litter size-by-genotype interactions considerably modified the degree to which increasing litter size caused reduced weight. For example at one locus this effect leads to a 7% difference in body weight at week 7 between individuals experiencing the extremes of the normal range of litter sizes in our population (five to nine litter mates). The observed interaction between genotype and the competitive environment can produce differences in body weight that are similar in magnitude to the main effect of litter size on weight. Our results show that different genotypes respond to the social environment differentially and that interaction effects of genotype with litter size can be as important as genotype-independent effects of litter size.

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“…For example, intrauterine competition for nutrients has been known as the major reason for lower birth weight in mink kits (Schneider and Hunter, 1993). Antagonistic relationship between average birth weight and increasing litter sizes has also been demonstrated in other multiparous species such as rabbits (Castellini et al, 2010), pigs (Pardo et al, 2013), and mice (Reading, 1966;van Engelen et al, 1995). In addition, dystocia, suffocation, and crushing by the dam reduce total number of kits born alive in mink.…”

Section: Genetic Correlations Of Litter Weight Traits With Survival Rmentioning

confidence: 80%

Genetic and phenotypic parameters for litter size, survival rate, gestation length, and litter weight traits in American mink1

Karimi

Sargolzaei

Plastow

et al. 2018

Journal of Animal Science

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The economic efficiency of mink production is greatly influenced by reproductive performance. Therefore, the objective of this study was to estimate phenotypic and genetic parameters for reproduction traits including total number of kits born (TB), number of live kits at birth (LB), number of live kits at weaning (LW), survival rate at birth (SB), survival rate at weaning (SW), gestation length (GL), average kit weight per litter at birth (AWB), average kit weight per litter at week 3 (AW3), and average kit weight per litter at weaning (AWW) in American mink. Data included records of 3,046 litters collected by the Canadian Centre for Fur Animal Research at Dalhousie Faculty of Agriculture between 2002 and 2016. Significance (P < 0.05) of fixed effects (year, number of matings, color type, age of dam, origin of dam, sex ratio, and number of live kits) and random effects of permanent environment were determined using univariate repeatability models. A significant effect of permanent environment was only found for survival rate traits (P < 0.05). Subsequently, genetic and phenotypic parameters for all traits were estimated by fitting a set of bivariate models using ASREML 4.0. Heritabilities (± SE) were estimated to be 0.07 ± 0.03 for TB, 0.07 ± 0.02 for LB, 0.09 ± 0.04 for LW, 0.13 ± 0.03 for SB, 0.10 ± 0.02 for SW, 0.29 ± 0.03 for GL, 0.28 ± 0.05 for AWB, 0.19 ± 0.04 for AW3, and 0.10 ± 0.04 for AWW. Moderate positive genetic correlation was observed between AWB with SB (0.66 ± 0.10) and SW (0.61 ± 0.13). Furthermore, genetic correlations of LB with SW and AWB were 0.55 ± 0.16 and 0.53 ± 0.18, respectively. On the other hand, negative and moderate genetic correlations were observed between GL and survival rates at birth (-0.43 ± 0.14) and at weaning (-0.37 ± 0.15). These results indicated that selection for higher litter weights at birth can effectively improve survival rate and number of live kits in mink farms. It was suggested to incorporate litter weight traits as a selection criterion to increase maternal ability in mink breeding programs. Unfavorable genetic trends were observed for the studied traits indicating that phenotypic selection with low selection intensity had not been an efficient method to improve them over the last 10 yr. It was recommended to use genetic or genomic evaluation methods for mink selection.

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Effects of Parity and Litter Size on the Birth Weight of Inbred Mice

Cited by 11 publications

References 7 publications

Associations of Birth Order With Early Growth and Adolescent Height, Body Composition, and Blood Pressure: Prospective Birth Cohort From Brazil

Associations of Birth Order With Early Growth and Adolescent Height, Body Composition, and Blood Pressure: Prospective Birth Cohort From Brazil

Genotype-dependent responses to levels of sibling competition over maternal resources in mice

Genetic and phenotypic parameters for litter size, survival rate, gestation length, and litter weight traits in American mink1

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