Detection of Copy Number Variation in sheep by whole ge-nome sequencing

Sheep (Ovis aries) is one of the most important livestock species in the world. Copy number varia-tion (CNV) has become an important tool to explore genetic variation and its association with economic traits in animals. However, previous CNV studies in sheep were based on either single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) microarrays or comparative genome hybridization arrays (aCGH). Both platforms have some natural drawbacks for CNV detection. Therefore, a study was undertaken to detect CNVs in sheep using next-generation sequencing (NGS) data.