Trypanotolerance effect as a result of genomic imprinting in F2 murine population

Abstract

African tsetse-fly transmitted trypanosomosis affects a wide range of wild and domesticated animal species. Trypanotolerance, the ability of some breeds to withstand the infection has been recognized and provides a sustainable option in animal production. While a genetic contribution, several behavioural traits are not in doubt, an attempt to find the responsible genes has proven to be complicated. One advance towards generating trypanotolerant animals has been the demonstration of an effective genetic imprinting phenomenon in crossbred mice, similar to that observed following challenge. We report a novel reciprocal crossing strategy that exploits epistasis and heterosis in inbred mouse strains to identify imprinting effect controlling trypanosomosis using an F2 (129/J x C57BL/6) resource populations. The results indicate that genetic control for trypanotolerance is complicated and the identification of imprinting effect may provide new insights of introgressing trypanotolerance in livestock

Kenya Veterinarian Vol. 31 (2) 2007: pp. 68-71