Evaluating maternal imprinting effects for growth and reproductive traits in Murciano-Granadina goats

This research aimed to conduct a genetic analysis of maternal imprinting effects on growth and reproductive characteristics in the Murciano-Granadina goats. Data for the present study were recorded between 2016 and 2022 on a farm in the Kerman province, Iran. Traits studied were body weight at birth (WB) and weaning (WW), pre-weaning average daily gain (ADG), Kleiber ratio (KR) and growth efficiency (GE). Reproduction traits were litter size at birth (LSB), litter size at weaning (LSW), total litter size at birth (TLWB) and total litter size at weaning (TLWW). An animal model was used to analyze the data. Comparison of the models with and without maternal imprinting effects was performed using Akaike’s information criterion (AIC). Maternal imprinting had a significant impact on WB and LSW. The heritability estimates for maternal imprinting ( ) were 0.07±0.07 for WB and 0.07±0.02 for LSW. Accounting for maternal imprinting effects into the model resulted in a reduction of 2% and 56% in the direct heritability of WB and LSW, respectively. In addition, the value of  for WB was reduced by approximately 75%. The results implied that there are maternal imprinting effects on the WB and LSW of Murciano-Granadina goats. Hence, the genetic evaluation models for these traits should consider the effect of maternal imprinting effect.