Genome-Wide Association Study Reveals Constant and Specific Loci for Hematological Traits at Three Time Stages in a White Duroc × Erhualian F2 Resource Population

Hematological traits are important indicators of immune function and have been commonly examined as biomarkers of disease and disease severity in humans. Pig is an ideal biomedical model for human diseases due to its high degree of similarity with human physiological characteristics. Here, we conducted genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for 18 hematological traits at three growth stages (days 18, 46 and 240) in a White Duroc × Erhualian F2 intercross. In total, we identified 38 genome-wide significant regions containing 185 genome-wide significant SNPs by single-marker GWAS or LONG-GWAS. The significant regions are distributed on pig chromosomes (SSC) 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17 and 18, and most of significant SNPs reside on SSC7 and SSC8. Of the 38 significant regions, 7 show constant effects on hematological traits across the whole life stages, and 6 regions have time-specific effects on the measured traits at early or late stages. The most prominent locus is the genomic region between 32.36 and 84.49 Mb on SSC8 that is associated with multiple erythroid traits. The KIT gene in this region appears to be a promising candidate gene. The findings improve our understanding of the genetic architecture of hematological traits in pigs. Further investigations are warranted to characterize the responsible gene(s) and causal variant(s) especially for the major loci on SSC7 and SSC8.