Partial short-read sequencing of a highly inbred Iberian pig and genomics inference thereof

Despite dramatic reduction in sequencing costs with the advent of next generation sequencing technologies, obtaining a complete mammalian genome sequence at sufficient depth is still costly. An alternative is partial sequencing. Here, we have sequenced a reduced representation library of an Iberian sow from the Guadyerbas strain, a highly inbred strain that has been used in numerous QTL studies because of its extreme phenotypic characteristics. Using the Illumina Genome Analyzer II (San Diego, CA, USA), we resequenced similar to 1% of the genome with average 4 x depth, identifying 68 778 polymorphisms. Of these, 55 457 were putative fixed differences with respect to the assembly, based on the genome of a Duroc pig, and 13 321 were heterozygous positions within Guadyerbas. Despite being highly inbred, the estimate of heterozygosity within Guadyerbas was similar to 0.78 kb(-1) in autosomes, after correcting for low depth. Nucleotide variability was consistently higher at the telomeric regions than on the rest of the chromosome, likely a result of increased recombination rates. Further, variability was 50% lower in the X-chromosome than in autosomes, which may be explained by a recent bottleneck or by selection. We divided the whole genome in 500 kb windows and we analyzed overrepresented gene ontology terms in regions of low and high variability. Multi organism process, pigmentation and cell killing were overrepresented in high variability regions and metabolic process ontology, within low variability regions. Further, a genome wide Hudson-Kreitman-Aguade test was carried out per window; overall, variability was in agreement with neutral expectations. Heredity (2011) 107, 256-264; doi: 10.1038/hdy.2011.13; published online 16 March 2011