Genet. Sel. Evol. 39 (2007) 195-206
DOI: 10.1051/gse:2006042

Association with litter size of new polymorphisms on ESR1 and ESR2 genes in a Chinese-European pig line

Gloria Muñoz^a, Cristina Ovilo^a, Jordi Estellé^b, Luis Silió^a, Almudena Fernández^a and Carmen Rodriguez<sup>a

a</sup>  Departamento de Mejora Genética Animal, SGIT-INIA, 28040 Madrid, Spain
^b  Departament de Ciència Animal i dels Aliments, UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain

(Received 14 July 2006; accepted 31 October 2006; published online 17 February 2007)

Abstract - The objective of this study was to search for polymorphisms in the coding region of the estrogen receptors 1 and 2 (ESR1 and ESR2) and to analyze the effects of these variants and the well known intronic ESR1 PvuII polymorphism on litter size in a Chinese-European pig line. We identified five silent single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the ESR1 cDNA: c.669T > C (exon 3), c.1227C > T (exon 5), c.1452C > T (exon 7), c.1665T > C and c.1755A > G (exon 8). One pair of these SNP (c.1665T > C and c.1755A > G) co-segregated in the analyzed line, and the SNP c.669T > C showed the same segregation pattern as the PvuII polymorphism. These polymorphisms were tested in this study, although the c.1452C > T SNP within exon 7 was not analyzed due to its low informativeness. In the ESR2 cDNA, one missense SNP was found within exon 5, which caused an amino acid substitution in the coded protein: "c.949G > A (p.Val317Met)" and was tested on sow litter size. Information on 1622 litter records from 408 genotyped sows was analyzed to determine whether these SNP influenced the total number of piglets born (TNB) or the number of born alive (NBA). The polymorphisms ESR1: [ PvuII; c.669T > C] , ESR1: [ c.1665T > C; c.1755A > G] and ESR2: c.949G > A showed no statistically significant association with litter size. However, the ESR1: c.1227T allele was significantly associated with TNB. The additive substitution effect was estimated to be 0.40 piglets born per litter (P < 0.03), and no dominance effects were observed. This SNP could be useful in assisted selection for litter size in some pig lines, as a new genetic marker in linkage disequilibrium with the causative mutation.

Key words: estrogen receptor genes / polymorphisms / pig / litter size

Correspondence and reprints: silio@inia.es

© INRA, EDP Sciences 2007