Potential functional variants in <i>AHR</i> signaling pathways are associated with age at puberty in swine

Puberty in female pigs is defined as age at first estrus and gilts that have an earlier puberty are more likely to greater lifetime productivity. Because predictive for sow longevity productivity, but not routinely measured commercial herds, it would be beneficial use genomic or marker-assisted selection improve these traits. A GWAS the US Meat Animal Research Center (USMARC) identified several loci associated with pigs. Candidate genes regions were scanned potential functional variants using sequence information from USMARC swine population founder animals public databases. In total, 135 (SNP insertion/deletions) 39 genotyped 1284 phenotyped a validation sired by Landrace Yorkshire industry semen Agena MassArray system. Twelve eight (P < 0.005) estimated additive SNP effects ranging 1.6 5.3 days. Nine of non-synonymous coding changes AHR, CYP1A2, OR2M4, SDCCAG8, TBC1D1 ZNF608, two deletions one four codons aryl hydrocarbon receptor, most significant was near acceptor splice site acetyl-CoA carboxylase alpha, ACACA. Several physiological genetic role sexual maturation humans other involved AHR-mediated pathways. Further could identify causative mutations influence possibly