The aim of the present study was to investigate whether and to what extent the RNF4-SacII gene polymorphism influences reproduction performances in hyperprolific sow lines. The study involved 101 Landrace x Large White crossbred sows, with 461 records collected on the following reproductive traits: Total Number of piglets Born per litter (TNB), Number of piglets Born Alive per litter (NBA), Number of StillBorn piglets per litter (NSB), piglet Pre-Weaning Mortality (PWM) and Number of piglets at Weaning per litter (NW). The least square method with the GLM procedure in SAS with eight effects was used to pursue the data analysis. Study results revealed that TT homozygotes and TC heterozygotes had a significantly higher (p < .05) NW than CC homozygotes for the life-span performance in all parities and first parity analysed. In the fourth parity analysed, TNB and NBA in TC genotype were significantly higher (p < .05) as compared with TT genotype. Based on the life-span performance, significant effect (p < .05) was recorded for order of parity on TNB, NBA and NW, for farrowing season on TNB and NSB, and for lactation length on PWM. In the second parity, significant effect (p < .05) was recorded for sire of boar on NSB and for gestation length on TNB. Only in the fourth parity, significant effect (p < .05) of RNF4 gene was observed on NBA. There was significant additive effect (p < .05) of the RNF4 gene polymorphism identified on NW in all parities analysed, and significant additive and dominance effects (p < .05) on NSB in the third parity analysed. In conclusion, additional research on related production pig genotypes is necessary to elucidate the effect of RNF4 gene mutation on reproductive traits.
Keywords: RNF4 gene; litter size; pigs; polymorphism; reproductive traits.
© 2020 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.