Genome‐wide association study of periweaning failure‐to‐thrive syndrome (PFTS) in pigs

Abstract

Porcine periweaning-failure-to-thrive syndrome (PFTS) is a condition that affects newly weaned piglets. It is characterised by a progressive debilitation leading to death, in the absence of infectious, nutritional, management or environmental factors. In this study, we present the first report of PFTS in South America and the results of a genome-wide association study to identify the genetic markers associated with the appearance of this condition in a crossbred swine population. Four chromosomal regions were associated with PFTS predisposition, one located on SSCX, one on SSC8, and the two other regions on SSC14. Regions on SSC8 and SSC14 harbour important functional candidate genes involved in human depression and might have an important role in PFTS. Our findings contribute to the increasing knowledge about this syndrome, which has been investigated since 2007, and to the identification of the aetiology of this disease.

Genomic investigation of porcine periweaning failure to thrive syndrome (PFTS)

“…The combination of several statistical approaches (single SNP logistic regression, single SNP Fst and window-based Fst) showed a common pattern that was observed by all the three methods used, with associations on SSC1, 3, 6 and 11, even though none of the signals was highly signiicant (for the logistic regression approach) or highly divergent (for the Fst-based methods). This is in line with what was reported by Zanella and others, 7 where a similar case-control study detected clusters of SNPs with low P values, albeit on diferent chromosomes (SSC8 and 14). Anyway, it is worth mentioning that the diference in the genetic background of the animals used, the number of samples and the slight diference in number of SNPs between the work by Zanella and others and this current one.…”

“…The present work took advantage of samples that have been already well characterised, to exclude any other possible diseases that could confound analysis. One of the irst research questions was to conirm the previous indings of Zanella and others, 7 speciically, whether PFST equally afects both female and male in an equal manner. In agreement with Zanella and others, the present study case-control chi-squared analysis between the sex-imputed animals conirmed the lack of association between sex and this syndrome.…”

“…This case‐control study in a Brazilian commercial nursery herd detected moderate associations with single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on chromosomes 8 and 14. These SNPs were close to neuronal genes that are involved in human depression and were identified as possible candidate genes for PFTS 7 …”

“…These SNPs were close to neuronal genes that are involved in human depression and were identiied as possible candidate genes for PFTS. 7 The aim of the present study was to further investigate, using a combination of several statistical approaches, if genomic regions were associated with PFTS in commercial pigs in North America, and to detect possible candidate genes that may help to explain the genetic components associated with this syndrome.…”

“…This syndrome, previously known as postweaning catabolic syndrome (PWCS), was first reported in 2008 in the USA 2 and has gained attention due to the increasing number of outbreaks that caused major economic losses in the USA and Canada 3–5 . Recently, this syndrome has been observed in Spain and Brazil 6 7 …”