Refinement of a quantitative trait locus on equine chromosome 5 responsible for fetlock osteochondrosis in Hanoverian warmblood horses.

In this report, we provide 29 new informative microsatellites distributed over a region of 21 Mb on horse chromosome (ECA) 5 and refine a quantitative trait locus (QTL) for fetlock osteochondrosis dissecans (OCD) to a genome-wide significant interval between 78.03 and 90.23 Mb on ECA5. Genotyping was performed in 211 Hanoverian warmblood horses from 14 paternal half-sib groups. Within this OCD-QTL, collagen type XXIV alpha 1 was identified as a potential functional candidate gene for equine osteochondrosis. This report is a further step towards unravelling the genes that cause equine osteochondrosis.