SINGLE-PARENT SEGREGANT POOLS FOR ALLOCATION OF MARKERS TO A SPECIFIED CHROMOSOMAL REGION IN OUTCROSSING SPECIES

Bulked co-segregant analysis is a method of rapidly allocating unmappe d genetic markers to a specific chromosomal region. Although originall y developed for utilization in populations derived from crosses betwee n fully inbred lines, it has been proposed that co-segregant pools cou ld also serve the same purpose in outbreeding populations, if individu als from only a single large family are pooled. Large, fully mapped, s ingle-sire backcross and half-sib families are presently available as part of the international chicken and bovine reference family panels r espectively. In this study, power and tests of significance for single -parent co-segregant analysis are derived for full-sib, single-parent backcross and single-parent half-sib families, as a function of propor tion of recombination between index marker and linked marker, proporti on of single-parent alleles among the mates, number of individuals in each segregant pool and technical error variance. Power was found to b e greater than 0.80 for many reasonable parameter combinations. The me thod is illustrated using microsatellite markers and a large single-si re bovine family, part of the international bovine reference family pa nel.