Transgenerational epigenetic variance for body weight in meat quails

Abstract

We aimed to estimate transgenerational epigenetic variance for body weight using genealogical and phenotypic information in meat quails. Animals were individually weighted from 1 week after hatching, with weight records at 7, 14, 21, 28, 35 and 42 days of age (BW7, BW14, BW21, BW28, BW35 and BW42, respectively). Single-trait genetic analyses were performed using mixed models with random epigenetic effects. Variance components were estimated by the restricted maximum likelihood method. A grid search for values of autorecursive parameter (λ) ranging from 0 to 0.5 was used in the variance component estimation. This parameter is directly related to the reset coefficient (ν) and the epigenetic coefficient of transmissibility (1-ν). The epigenetic effect was only significant for BW7. Direct heritability estimates for body weight ranged in magnitude (from 0.15 to 0.26), with the highest estimate for BW7. Epigenetic heritability was 0.10 for BW7, and close to zero for the other body weights. The inclusion of the epigenetic effect in the model helped to explain the residual and non-Mendelian variability of initial body weight in meat quails.

Inclusive inheritance for residual feed intake in pigs and rabbits

“…This objective can be only achieved by considering additional information in the model such as measurements of the shared microbiota, methylation patterns reflecting epigenetic transmission, etc. Indeed, disentangling genetic and non‐genetic effects is challenging without additional information than pedigree and phenotypes (David & Ricard, 2019), which may explain the relatively low number of reports of significant epigenetic variance in the literature (Paiva, De Resende, Resende, De Oliveira, et al, 2018; Paiva, De Resende, Resende, Oliveira, et al, 2018; Varona et al., 2015). It has been proven by simulation that, in simple situations, the LRT comparing the animal and the transmissibility model is conservative (David & Ricard, 2019).…”

A Unified Model for Inclusive Inheritance in Livestock Species

“…However, the quantification of nongenetic inheritance for traits under selection is rare. Paiva et al (2018a) reported an epigenetic heritability of 0.10 for body weight in meat quails, while Difford et al (2018) estimated simultaneously that significant parts of the variance for CH4 emission in cattle were explained by genetics and the microbiota (0.21 and 0.13, respectively). To our knowledge, the part of variance explained by culture/behavioral inheritance has never been reported in the literature for livestock species.…”

“…Finally, our model combines the different sources of inheritance into a single transmissible value. However, the OWN Fortran program we propose to run the transmissibility model allows the different sources of inheritance to be separated if required, especially genetic and epigenetic inheritance, as described by Varona et al (2015) or Paiva et al (2018a,b). Furthermore, unlike previous methods proposed, the program that we propose has the advantage of (1) using a frequentist method for the estimations (faster than the Bayesian approach), (2) estimating the path coefficients (conversely to the grid search proposed by Paiva et al 2018a), and (3) allowing for different path coefficients for sires and dams, which has never been proposed before.…”

“…Tal et al (2010) proposed a mathematical model for the transmission of epigenetic marks used later by Varona et al (2015) and Paiva et al (2018a) in the context of animal breeding. The model is built on the idea that, during the vertical transmission of epigenetic marks from mother to offspring and from father to offspring, an unknown proportion of them is lost (thus not transmitted to the next generation).…”

Epigenética: mecanismos, herança e implicações no melhoramento animal

“…Diversos fenômenos epigenéticos em animais já foram reportados na literatura (Berghof et al 2013;Feeney et al 2014;Frésard et al 2013;Gao et al 2017;Leurox et al 2017;Li et al 2016;Triantaphyllopoulos et al 2016) demonstrando a necessidade de compreender plenamente a importância da epigenética na variabilidade fenotípica das características de importância econômica Poucos trabalhos procuram investigar e quantificar a variância epigenética transgeracional de características utilizadas como critérios de seleção nos programas de melhoramento. Alguns autores vêm propondo modelos estatísticos, incluindo herança epigenética e interações ambientais (Lopes et al 2015;Johannes & Colomé-Tatché 2011;Paiva et al 2018a;Paiva et al 2018b;Tal et al 2010;Varona et al 2015), oferecendo novos caminhos para uma futura inclusão destes mecanismos em estudos de seleção genética. A reversibilidade das modificações epigenéticas, ou seja, a sua natureza potencialmente transitória, poderia constituir um desafio na modelagem de herança.…”