Transcriptome sequencing of 120 layers

Egg-laying performance is economically important in poultry breeding programs. Crossbreeding between indigenous and elite commercial lines to exploit heterosis has been an upward trend in traditional layer breeding for niche markets. Pure line Beijing-You chickens (YY) and White Leghorns (WW); and their reciprocal crosses with either Beijing-You (YW) or White Leghorns (WY) as the sire line were·subjected to transcript sequencing. The objective of this study was to integrate transcriptome sequencing data with whole genome sequencing data to identify the candidate additive or heterosis related genetic variants for longitudinal egg-laying traits.