Abstract：To explore candidate genes that affect chicken reproduction traits, 396 Jinghai yellow chicken(Gallus gallus) were genotyped for the 29 SNPs, which had been reported, using a kind of chicken 60 K single nucleotide polymorphism(SNP) chip, and the associations between the 29 SNPs and 11 reproduction traits were analyzed. The results showed that 12 of the 29 SNPs were associated with no less than 1 reproduction trait in Jinghai yellow chicken (P＜0.05). Moreover, 7 of 12 SNPs were identified to be associated with 2 traits (P＜0.05). In total, there was 1 SNP that was identified to have effects on age at first egg (P＜0.05), 2 SNPs had effects on egg number at the age of 462 days, 6 SNPs had effects on egg weight, 6 SNPs had effects on body weight at first egg, 2 SNPs had effects on multiple selection index and 1 SNP had effect on healthy offspring percentage. Unfortunately, no significant SNP (P＜0.05) was found to be associated with egg number at the age of 300 days, egg number between the ages of 300 and 462 days and offspring hatchability. The genetic parameters indicated that continued selection of Jinghai yellow chicken was possible and necessary. Moreover, most of the homozygote had better reproduction performance. The functions of a few function genes nearest to 12 SNPs: Armadillo repeat gene deleted in velocardiofacial syndrome(ARVCF), colony stimulating factor 3 receptor(CSF3R) and odz, odd Oz/ten-m homolog(2ODZ2) were discussed and found to affect chicken reproduction traits by different ways. All these results furtherly supply basic materials for researches of molecular markers and candidate genes of chicken reproduction traits.
