6. INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON CONTEMPORARY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
GENOMIC SELECTION IN LIVESTOCK BREEDING: AN OVERVIEW
In the past, phenotypic recordings served as the foundation for selective animal breeding for commercially important traits. Beginning in 1990, developments in molecular genetics promised that information at the DNA level would result in greater genetic advancement than phenotypic data alone. The current extensive usage of DNA information is the consequence of three breakthroughs: 1) the process of genomic selection; 2) the discovery of thousands of SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) markers; and 3) SNP-chip genotyping technologies, which make it affordable to genotype all of these SNPs. In genomic selection, SNP effects are estimated by genotyping and recording a reference population for the trait. Next, selection candidates are genotyped, and by combining their genotypes with the estimated effects, "genomic estimates of breeding values" (GEBV) are estimated for the selection candidates.
