About the Authors

Ling Lian

Contributed equally to this work with: Ling Lian, Lujiang Qu

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

Lujiang Qu

Contributed equally to this work with: Ling Lian, Lujiang Qu

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

Yanmei Chen

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

Susan J. Lamont

Affiliation Department of Animal Science, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, United States of America

Ning Yang

nyang@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: NY LJQ LL. Performed the experiments: LL LJQ YMC. Analyzed the data: LL LJQ YMC. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: LL YMC. Wrote the paper: LL. Assisted with data interpretation and revision of the manuscript: NY SJL LJQ.