Selecting for coli resistance

摘要

New hope for herds suffering from E. coli problems in their baby pigs is offered by a genetic testing procedure under development in Belgium. Because of the emergence of the test, within a few years these herds should be able to buy breeding stock which pass to their progeny an inherent ability to resist a coli infection soon after birth. It is the latest sign of the rapid advances being made in pinpointing individual parts of the pig genome or genetic structure for selection purposes. Internationalstudies have produced an outline map showing the position of about 100 genes (and another 500 or more micro-satellite loci) on the animal's 19 pairs of chromosomes and the distances between them. From this mapping exercise has come the possibility of locating certain genes, that are either important in their own right or act as markers towards the inheritance of key production traits.