Omics and bioinformatics approaches to target boar taint

Abstract

AbstractIn livestock species, a rapid growth in high-throughput omics data has accelerated the pace of studies that target to dissect economically important traits to provide better quality animal products to consumers. In pig industries, young boars are generally castrated to remove boar taint, a phenotypic and inheritable trait well-known by an abnormally bad smell and taste in pork meat derived from some uncastrated male pigs. Existence of porcine reference genome made possible to catalogue genome-wide QTLs, candidate genes and biomarkers in associations with boar taint and other industrially significant traits in pigs. The aim of this paper to review the contribution of bioinformatics resources and omics technology in boar taint related studies. This paper also provides concise details about state-of-the-art sequencing technology.