AUTHOR=Reyer Henry , Oster Michael , Wittenburg Dörte , Murani Eduard , Ponsuksili Siriluck , Wimmers Klaus TITLE=Genetic Contribution to Variation in Blood Calcium, Phosphorus, and Alkaline Phosphatase Activity in Pigs JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics VOLUME=10 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2019.00590 DOI=10.3389/fgene.2019.00590 ISSN=1664-8021 ABSTRACT=
Blood values of calcium (Ca), inorganic phosphorus (IP), and alkaline phosphatase activity (ALP) are valuable indicators for mineral status and bone mineralization. The mineral homeostasis is maintained by absorption, retention, and excretion processes employing a number of known and unknown sensing and regulating factors with implications on immunity. Due to the high inter-individual variation of Ca and P levels in the blood of pigs and to clarify molecular contributions to this variation, the genetics of hematological traits related to the Ca and P balance were investigated in a German Landrace population, integrating both single-locus and multi-locus genome-wide association study (GWAS) approaches. Genomic heritability estimates suggest a moderate genetic contribution to the variation of hematological Ca (