RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 GWAS identifies a single selective sweep for age of maturation in wild and cultivated Atlantic salmon males JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 024927 DO 10.1101/024927 A1 Fernando Ayllon A1 Erik Kjærner-Semb A1 Tomasz Furmanek A1 Vidar Wennevik A1 Monica Solberg A1 Harald Sægrov A1 Kurt Urdal A1 Geir Dahle A1 Geir Lasse Wargelius A1 Kevin A. Glover A1 Markus S Almén A1 Carl J Rubin A1 Rolf B. Edvardsen A1 Anna Wargelius YR 2015 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/08/17/024927.1.abstract AB Background Sea age at sexual maturation displays large plasticity for wild Atlantic salmon males and varies between 1-5 years. This flexibility can also be observed in domesticated salmon. Previous studies have uncovered a genetic predisposition for age at maturity with moderate heritability, thus suggesting a polygenic nature of this trait. The aim with this study was to identify genomic regions and associated SNPs and genes conferring age at maturity in salmon.Results We performed a GWAS using a pool sequencing approach (n=20 per river and trait) of salmon returning as sexually mature either after one sea winter (2009) or after three sea winters (2011) in six rivers in Norway. The study revealed one major selective sweep, which covered 76 significant SNP in a 230 kb region of Chr 25. A SNP assay of other year classes of wild salmon and from cultivated fish supported this finding. The assay in cultivated fish reduced the haplotype conferring the trait to a region which covered 4 SNPs of a 2386 bp region containing the vgll3 gene. 2 of these SNPs caused miss-sense mutations in vgll3.Conclusions This study presents a single selective region in the genome for age at maturation in male Atlantic salmon. The SNPs identified may be used as QTLs to prevent early maturity in aquaculture and in monitoring programs of wild salmon. Interestingly, the identified vgll3 gene has previously been linked to time of puberty in humans, suggesting a conserved mechanism for time of puberty in vertebrates.