A Genetic Exploration of Australian Large White Pigs

Abstract

Limited information is available about the genetic structure of Australian pigs. The genetic relationships of 20 Large White and 2 Duroc pigs sampled from one herd were explored and their genetic distance to European pigs of the same and different breeds was estimated using SNP data. On average, 36% of SNPs were heterozygous for Large White pigs. Mean correlations between Australian Large White and European breeds were highest for European Large White (0.35) and Middle White (0.34), and lowest for European Duroc (0.20) and Meishan (0.09). The analysis of breed percentages based on constrained genomic regression showed highest similarity of Australian Large White with European Large White (36.8%) followed by Middle White (15.9%) and Welsh (12.6%). Based on this small sample, the Australian pigs sampled retained significant heterozygosity and can be regarded as a distinct population to the sampled European breeds.