Mapping and exploiting economically important genes in Australian pigs

Over the past 7 years, a number of Australian institutions, including the University of Sydney, the Victorian Institute of Animal Science and University of Melbourne, the Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit, Armidale, and the Pig Research and Development Corporation and its successor Australian Pork Limited, have financed and participated in a sustained program of porcine genomics research, seeking economically important genes for the pig industry and ways to exploit them. The involvement of Bunge Meat Industries has provided access to the largest piggery in the southern hemisphere with the capacity to quickly breed and evaluate very large resource pedigrees under commercial conditions of production, frequently for traits not normally recorded in commercial pigs. Standard growth and fatness traits have been recorded, but also records of food conversion efficiency, intramuscular fat, androstenone levels, tenderness, stress responses, immune traits and many other characteristics affecting the efficiency of production or product quality have been measured. The University partners have provided molecular genetics expertise and facilities, leading edge quantitative genetic analysis for identification of genetic regions affecting variation in these traits, and economic and genetic evaluation of the potential for the exploitation of the results in the industry. The aim is eventually to develop DNA tests to supplement conventional performance selection to expedite selective improvement and allow its implementation for traits where it is too difficult or too expensive to implement performance selection.