Identifying fertility markers in boars

生育能力差的公猪给猪遗传公司（如Topigs Norsvin Canada Inc.）和更大的加拿大养猪业造成了经济损失，降低了食品生产的效率，减缓了基因改良的速度。目前还没有对公猪生育能力的准确测试，加拿大Topigs Norsvin必须向许多客户提供精液，并从几个生产商至少20次授精中收集怀孕率和每胎猪的数量，然后才能确定公猪本身是否生育能力低下。成功鉴定亚育或非育公猪将使Topigs Norsvin Canada Inc.减少昂贵的繁殖损失，提高加拿大养猪业的整体生产力和盈利能力。该项目的目的是确定公猪生育能力的潜在标记，以便在选择进入育种计划之前对个别公猪进行预筛选。这将通过在已被证明具有高和低生育能力的公猪中确定一种新发现的预测生育能力的蛋白质atp酶的独特数量和类型来实现。众多的Skype和面对面的咨询之间的Topigs官员和我们的集团设计了这个令人兴奋的项目，以评估这项技术在加拿大工业的适用性。将确定高繁殖力公猪和低繁殖力公猪之间的差异，这些数据将为开发一种简单的功能分析提供基础，使Topigs Norsvin Canada Inc.能够主动筛选其系统内的所有公猪，并从繁殖种群中识别和移除低繁殖力公猪。

Boars with poor fertility cause financial losses to swine genetic companies such as Topigs Norsvin Canada Inc. and the larger Canadian swine industry, reduce the efficiency of food production, and slow the rate of genetic improvement. Currently there is no accurate test for a boar's fertility, and Topigs Norsvin Canada must provide semen to a number of customers, and collect pregnancy rates and number of pigs per litter from at least 20 inseminations from several producers before they can determine if the boar himself is subfertile. Successful identification of sub or non-fertile boars would enable Topigs Norsvin Canada Inc. to reduce costly reproductive losses and improve the overall productivity and profitability of the Canadian swine industry. The objective of this project is to identify potential markers of boar fertility to allow pre-screening of individual boars before selection into a breeding program. This will be achieved by determining the uniquely different amounts and types of a newly identified fertility-predicting protein, ATPase, in boars already proven to be of high and low fertility. Numerous Skype and in-person consultations between Topigs officials and our group have designed this exciting project to assess applicability of this technology in the Canadian industry. Differences between high and low fertility boars will be determined and these data will provide the foundation for the development of a simple functional assay to enable Topigs Norsvin Canada Inc. to proactively screen all boars within their system, and identify and remove low fertility boars from the breeding population.