Genomic Evaluation of Anglo Nubian Goats for Resistance to Endoparasite: A Pilot Study

Abstract

The objective of this study was to estimate the variance components and genetic parameters as well as to predict breeding values for resistance to endoparasite in Anglo Nubian goats, with repeatability model in single-trait analysis, with inclusion of genomic information. Records of body condition score (BCS), FAMACHA, eggs per gram of feces (EPG) treated by the logarithmic transformations scale L EPG = log (EPG + 1), and resistance to worms (RW) were used as traits associated with resistance to worms. A total of 89 animals were genotyped with Bead Chip Goats SNP50. There was little variation in variance component estimates and in heritability and repeatability values with the inclusion of the genomic information. The use of genomic information provided increased accuracy for all traits, providing gains in accuracy of up to 50% for the trait EPG. The use of genomic information improved the predictive ability of the models and, consequently, more reliable genetic parameters were estimated for traits associated with resistance to infections caused by endoparasites in Anglo Nubian goats.