Marker-Assisted Selection in the Equine

Dear Colleagues,

Ever since the horse was domesticated some 6000 years ago, humans have selected and bred horses with highly valued and desirable traits. The selection of various traits has led to an extensive breed diversity, with distinct breed specialties in around 350 horse and about 80 pony breeds. They all exhibit large differences in, for example, selection pressure, effective population size, or inbreeding level. While some of the modern breeds run the risk of losing their genomic diversity, due to strong selection pressure, it becomes even more important to keep the genomic diversity reservoir of native breeds for potential future needs.

Studies of equine genetics and genomics provide possibilities to track down existing diversity, risk of inbreeding, as well as discovery of mutations causing different traits and diseases. Since the release of the first equine genomic trace files in 2007, around 100 causative or possibly causative mutations of mendelian traits and disorders have been discovered in the horse. Still, there are numerous equine characteristics and disorders with an unknown genetic background. With the high-throughput genetic and genomic techniques available today, the research community has the possibility to also unravel regulatory or structural genomic variation, potentially causing complex and multivariate equine phenotypes. More knowledge about molecular genetic and/or genomic mutations and variations could assist horse breeders in how to use marker-assisted selection or genomic evaluation to produce highly-performing but still healthy and sustainable horses.

Dr. Sofia Mikko
Guest Editor

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