Genome-wide association study for jumping performances in French sport horses

A genome-wide association study was performed to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with jumping performances of warmbloods in France. The 999 horses included in the study for jumping performances were sport horses [mostly Selle Francais (68%), Anglo-Arabians (13%) and horses from the other European studbooks]. Horses were genotyped using the Illumina EquineSNP50 BeadChip. Of the 54602 SNPs available on this chip, 44424 were retained after quality testing. Phenotypes were obtained by deregressing official breeding values for jumping competitions to use all available information, that is, the performances of each horse as well as those of its relatives. Two models were used to test the effects of the genotypes on deregressed phenotypes: a single-marker mixed model and a haplotype-based mixed model (significant: P<1E-05; suggestive: P<1E-04). Both models included a polygenic effect to take into account familial structures. For jumping performances, one suggestive quantitative trait locus (QTL) located on chromosome 1 (BIEC2_31196 and BIEC2_31198) was detected with both models. This QTL explains 0.7% of the phenotypic variance. RYR2, a gene encoding a major calcium channel in cardiac muscle in humans and mice, is located 0.55Mb from this potential QTL.