About the Authors

Xiaolong Kang

Contributed equally to this work with: Xiaolong Kang, Gang Liu

Affiliations Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, MOA Laboratory of Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China, College of Agriculture, Ningxia University, Yinchuan, People’s Republic of China

Gang Liu

Contributed equally to this work with: Xiaolong Kang, Gang Liu

Affiliation Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, MOA Laboratory of Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China

Yufang Liu

Affiliation Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, MOA Laboratory of Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China

Qinqin Xu

Affiliation Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, MOA Laboratory of Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China

Ming Zhang

Affiliation Department of Animal Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, United States of America

Meiying Fang

meiying@cau.edu.cn

Affiliation Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, MOA Laboratory of Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MYF. Performed the experiments: XLK GL YFL QQX. Analyzed the data: XLK GL MZ MYF. Wrote the paper: XLK MYF.