Association Between the 313 bp Indel in Porcine POU1F1 Gene and Reproduction Traits

The study aims to analyze the distribution of the 313 bp indel (insertion/deletion termed as indel) in first intron of POUIF1 and it's association with reproduction traits in Sutai pigs by using the PCR-DSCP technique. The results showed that in this commercial pig population, the frequency of allele A was 0.6371, B was 0.3629; the genotype frequency of AA was 0.4516, AB was 0.3710, BB was 0.1774, and the X2 test showed that the allele frequencies were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The SPSS GLM procedure was used to identify the association of the 313 bp indel with reproductive traits. In Sutai pigs, the pigs with AA genotype represented higher value in all reproduction traits, except for higher survival rate of piglets at weaning. Higher weaning weight was significantly associated with AA genotype pigs and higher survival rate of piglets at weaning was significantly associated with BB genotype (P<0.05), but no significant differences in other reproduction traits among genotypes were found (P>0.05); the P value of different traits affected by fixed factors were not significant as well (P>0.05). The result indicated that although this 313 bp indel was significantly associated with the weaning weight and survival rate at weaning, no any association with major reproduction traits was observed in Sutai pigs.