{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,22]],"date-time":"2026-07-22T05:06:09Z","timestamp":1784696769804,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":55,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,22]],"date-time":"2026-07-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1784678400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Vet. Sci."],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Duolang sheep is a meat-fat dual-purpose breed originating from Xinjiang, China, and the genetic basis of body size variation in this breed remains unclear.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Whole-genome resequencing was performed on 224 Duolang sheep with complete records for six body size traits. After variant calling, imputation, and quality control, 19.65 million high-quality SNPs were retained. After linkage disequilibrium pruning, 2.1 million relatively independent SNPs were used for a mixed linear model GWAS in GEMMA. Tajima\u2019s D and integrated haplotype score analyses were performed in a kinship-filtered subset of 60 animals, and SheepGTEx data were used to characterize tissue expression patterns.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>\n                      The GWAS identified 24 significant SNPs for height, body length, chest girth, shoulder width, and hip width. Integration of GWAS intervals with selection-signal regions prioritized 31 candidate genes, including\n                      <jats:italic>CA10<\/jats:italic>\n                      ,\n                      <jats:italic>WDR45B<\/jats:italic>\n                      ,\n                      <jats:italic>FADS2<\/jats:italic>\n                      ,\n                      <jats:italic>LGALS12<\/jats:italic>\n                      , and\n                      <jats:italic>CTNNA2<\/jats:italic>\n                      . Multi-tissue expression profiles provided functional context for the prioritized genes.\n                    <\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Discussion<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>These findings provide insight into the genetic architecture of body size traits in Duolang sheep and identify candidate loci for future validation and genetic improvement studies.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fvets.2026.1869513","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,22]],"date-time":"2026-07-22T04:46:57Z","timestamp":1784695617000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["GWAS and selection signature analyses of whole-genome sequencing data identify genes associated with body size in Duolang sheep"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"13","author":[{"given":"Keyao","family":"Wang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Biotech Breeding, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University","place":["Beijing, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Zhigang","family":"Niu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Lab of Reproduction & Breeding Biotechnology of Grass Feeding Livestock of MOA, Xinjiang Academy of Animal Science","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sen","family":"Tang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Lab of Reproduction & Breeding Biotechnology of Grass Feeding Livestock of MOA, Xinjiang Academy of Animal Science","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Bing","family":"Han","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Lab of Reproduction & Breeding Biotechnology of Grass Feeding Livestock of MOA, Xinjiang Academy of Animal Science","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jie","family":"Xu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Lab of Reproduction & Breeding Biotechnology of Grass Feeding Livestock of MOA, Xinjiang Academy of Animal Science","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yifan","family":"Ma","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Lab of Reproduction & Breeding Biotechnology of Grass Feeding Livestock of MOA, Xinjiang Academy of Animal Science","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xiangdong","family":"Ding","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Biotech Breeding, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University","place":["Beijing, China"]},{"name":"Henan University of Animal Husbandry and Economy","place":["Zhengzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hongcai","family":"Shi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Lab of Reproduction & Breeding Biotechnology of Grass Feeding Livestock of MOA, Xinjiang Academy of Animal Science","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,22]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"194","DOI":"10.1186\/s12864-015-1384-9","article-title":"Genome-wide analysis reveals population structure and selection in Chinese indigenous sheep breeds","volume":"16","author":"Wei","year":"2015","journal-title":"BMC 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