8th World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production, August 13-18, 2006, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil LOCATIONS OF QTLs AFFECTING FLEECE TRAITS IN ANGORA GOATS ON CHROMOSOMES 1 AND 5 E.M. Cano 1 , G. Marrube 2 , S. Debenedetti 3 , F. Bidinost 3 , D.L. Roldan 1 , M. Abad 3 , D. Allain 4 , H. Taddeo 3 and M.A. Poli 1 1 Instituto de Genética, CICVyA-INTA, CC 25, CP 1712-Castelar, Argentina 2 Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias, U.B.A., Area de Genética-Buenos Aires, Argentina 3 Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bariloche-INTA, CP 8400-Río Negro, Argentina 4 INRA Station d'Amélioration Génétique des Animaux BP27, 31326 Castanet, Tolosan, France INTRODUCTION Several previous studies have indicated the presence of gene or gene families involved in fleece traits in sheep (reviewed by Cockett et al., 2001 and Purvis and Franklin, 2005), the hair in rabbit (Powell et al., 1995; Allain, D. et al., 2004), in human (Rogers et al., 2000; van Steensel et al., 2000) and in mice (Pruett et al., 2004). In a genome screen for QTLs in Angora goats, Cano et al. (2003), reported the preliminary results on putatives QTLs for Standard Deviation of Average Fiber Diameter (SDAFD), Coefficient of variation of AFD (CVAFD) and the proportion of fiber with diameter over 30 µm (F30). The aim of this study was to confirm the location of a QTL on chromosome (CHI) 1 and the location of a new QTL on CHI5 using new microsatellites and enlarged families in Angora goats. MATERIALS AND METHODS Animals and Phenotype Traits. The population analyzed had a total of 418 kids from 10 Angora bucks. The number of half-sib offspring per buck ranged between 26 to 73 kids. The population was created in five batches (years 2000 to 2004). Mid-side fleece samples were taken from kids at 4 months of age. Fleece samples were analyzed at the Textile Fibers Laboratory of INTA Bariloche. Eight phenotypic fleece traits were recorded: Average Fiber Diameter (AFD; µm), Coefficient of Variation of AFD (CVAFD; %), the percentage of fiber with diameter over 30 µm (F30), percentage of kemp fiber (KEMP; %), percentage of Continuous Medullated Fibers (CONT; %), percentage of Discontinuous Medullated Fibers (DISC; %), Staple Length (SL; mm) and the Average Curvature of Fiber (ACF; deg/mm). Microsatellite genotyping. The DNA isolation, microsatellite genotyping and PCR conditions were the same as described by Cano et al. (2003). All bucks were genotyped for 11 microsatellite on CHI1 and CHI5 from the available web goat genetic map (http://locus.jouy.inra.fr/cgi-bin/lgbc/mapping/common/intro2.pl?BASE=goat ); 6 markers on CHI1 (ILSTS004, BM1312, LSCV06, CSSM32, CSSM19 and BM3205) and 5 markers on CHI5 (OarFCB005, LSCV25, BMS1248, ILSTS034 and BM2830). Every offspring was subsequently genotyped for every marker which buck was heterozygote. Statistical Analysis. An interval analysis was performed under a half-sib model (Knott et al., 1996) using the QTL Express program (Seaton et al., 2002), at: http://qtl.cap.ed.ac.uk/ . The fixed effects included in the analysis were: sex, year of birth (2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 or 2004),