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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Genet.
Sec. Livestock Genomics
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fgene.2024.1441303

Genetic Parameters for Pelvic Organ Prolapse in Purebred and Crossbred Sows

Provisionally accepted
Ching-Yi Chen Ching-Yi Chen 1*Pieter Knap Pieter Knap 2Adria S. Bhatnagar Adria S. Bhatnagar 1Shogo Tsuruta Shogo Tsuruta 3Daniela Lourenco Daniela Lourenco 3Ignacy Misztal Ignacy Misztal 3Justin W. Holl Justin W. Holl 1
  • 1 Genus PIC (United States), Hendersonville, United States
  • 2 Genus PIC, Isernhagen, Germany
  • 3 University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This study aimed to investigate genetic parameters for sow pelvic organ prolapse in purebred and crossbred herds. Pelvic organ prolapse was recorded as normal or prolapsed on the individual sow level across 32 purebred and 8 crossbred farms. In total, 75,162 purebred Landrace sows from a single maternal line were recorded between 2018 and 2023, while 18,988 commercial two-way crossbred (Landrace x Large White) sows were available between 2020 and 2023. There were 5,122,005 animals included in the pedigree. The prolapse in purebreds and crossbreds was considered two different traits in the model. Pedigrees of the crossbred sows were determined based on genotypes through parentage assignment. The average incidence rates were 1.81% and 3.93% for purebreds and crossbreds, respectively. The bivariate model incorporated fixed effects of parity group and region with random effects of contemporary group (farm and mating year and month at the first parity), additive genetic, and residual. Genetic parameter estimates were obtained using BLUPF90+ with the AIREML option. The estimated additive variance was larger in crossbreds than in purebreds. Estimates of heritability in the observed scale were 0.09 (0.006) for purebreds and 0.11 (0.014) for crossbreds, with a genetic correlation of 0.83 using a linear model. Results suggested that including data from crossbreds with higher incidence rate is beneficial and selection to reduce the prolapse incidence in purebred sow herds would also benefit commercial crossbred sow herds.

    Keywords: pigs, sow mortality, Vaginal prolapse, Uterine Prolapse, Rectal Prolapse, Genetic parameters

    Received: 30 May 2024; Accepted: 22 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Chen, Knap, Bhatnagar, Tsuruta, Lourenco, Misztal and Holl. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ching-Yi Chen, Genus PIC (United States), Hendersonville, United States

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