Qingyuan partridge chicken is a renowned indigenous yellow broiler breed in China. Egg production traits are important economic traits for chickens. With the decreasing cost of whole genome resequencing, identifying candidate genes with more precision has become possible. In order to identify molecular markers and candidate genes associated with egg production traits, we conducted genome-wide association studies based on the resequencing data of 287 female Qingyuan partridge chickens. For each hen, age at first egg and egg laying rate were recorded and calculated, respectively. With a univariate linear mixed model, we detected one genome-wide significant single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and three chromosome-wide significant SNPs associated with egg laying rate. MTA2 is highly likely to be a functional gene for egg laying rate. Our study identifies MTA2 as the first time to be associated with egg laying rate. Findings in our study will advance our understanding of the genetic basis of egg production and have the potential to improve the efficiency of genomic selection in chickens.

中文翻译：

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全基因组关联研究确定了鸡产蛋性状的新候选基因

清远鹧鸪鸡是我国著名的地方黄肉鸡品种。产蛋性状是鸡的重要经济性状。随着全基因组重测序成本的降低，更精确地识别候选基因已成为可能。为了鉴定与产蛋性状相关的分子标记和候选基因，我们基于287只雌性清远鹧鸪鸡的重测序数据进行了全基因组关联研究。对于每只母鸡，分别记录并计算第一枚蛋的年龄和产蛋率。通过单变量线性混合模型，我们检测到一个全基因组显着单核苷酸多态性 (SNP) 和三个与产蛋率相关的全染色体显着 SNP。MTA2很可能是产蛋率的功能基因。我们的研究首次确定MTA2与产蛋率相关。我们的研究结果将增进我们对产蛋遗传基础的理解，并有可能提高鸡基因组选择的效率。