(1) Duck serum metabolites show low overall heritability, with class-specific differences; metabolites closer to gene-regulatory nodes (e.g., amino acids, nucleotides) exhibit higher heritability. (2) The mQTL bridge regulatory variants (eQTL/sQTL/apaQTL) to metabolite abundance and, in turn, to duck complex traits, clarifying the relatively complete genetic pathway. (3) Integrating mQTL information with genomic best linear unbiased prediction (GBLUP) model significantly improved trait prediction accuracy, demonstrating utility for duck breeding.
Xi et al. (2026) studied this question.