Bulk segregant RNA-seq reveals expression and positional candidate genes and allele-specific expression for disease resistance against enteric septicemia of catfish. Ictalurus punctatus

In this study, we demonstrated the application of BSR-Seq to study disease resistance by combining RNA-seq with bulk segregant analysis. It has the full capacity for the identification of differentially expressed genes, the capacity to identify significant SNPs between phenotypic bulks, the capacity to potentially identify the positional candidate genes, and the ability to identify allelic expressed genes. Among many differentially expressed genes, 17 genes were also among the genes that had high BFR and low combined allele ratio, suggesting that these genes could be potentially involved in disease resistance.