Fig. 1

Box plot illustrating the distribution of S/P values according to positive and negative groups, as well as male and female categories. Four multi-locus methods (mrMLM, FASTmrMLM, ISIS EM-BLASSO, and pKWmEB) were employed to identify markers associated with the host immune response to T. gondii infection. A total of 16 Toxoplasmosis-associated SNPs meeting the threshold of LOD 5 ≥ were identified. Among them, 13 SNPs were detected using parametric methods (mrMLM, FASTmrMLM, and ISIS EM-BLASSO; Table 1; Fig. 2A), while 3 SNPs were identified using nonparametric multi-locus methods (Table 1; Fig. 2B). QQ plot indicated no obvious evidence of inflation or deflation factors in the test statistics, confirming that possible population stratification and/or cryptic relatedness were effectively controlled during the GWA study (Fig. 3)