Development of Variance Component Methods for Genetic Dissection of Complex Traits

Sammanfattning: This thesis presents several developments on Variance component (VC) approach for Quantitative Trait Locus (QTL) mapping.The first part consists of methodological improvements: a new fast and efficient method for estimating IBD matrices, have been developed. The new method makes a better use of the computer resources in terms of computational power and storage memory, facilitating further improvements by resolving methodological bottlenecks in algorithms to scan multiple QTL. A new VC model have also been developed in order to consider and evaluate the correlation of the allelic effects within parental lines origin in experimental outbred crosses. The method was tested on simulated and experimental data and revealed a higher or similar power to detect QTL than linear regression based QTL mapping.The second part focused on the prospect to analyze multi-generational pedigrees by VC approach. The IBD estimation algorithm was extended to include haplotype information in addition to genotype and pedigree to improve the accuracy of the IBD estimates, and a new haplotyping algorithm was developed for limiting the risk of haplotyping errors in multigenerational pedigrees. Those newly developed methods where subsequently applied for the analysis of a nine generations AIL pedigree obtained after crossing two chicken lines divergently selected for body weight. Nine QTL described in a F2 population were replicated in the AIL pedigree, and our strategy to use both genotype and phenotype information from all individuals in the entire pedigree clearly made efficient use of the available genotype information provided in AIL.