Genetics Selection Evolution最新文献

{"title":"Ancestral alleles defined for 70 million cattle variants using a population-based likelihood ratio test","authors":"Jigme Dorji, Antonio Reverter, Pamela A. Alexandre, Amanda J. Chamberlain, Christy J. Vander-Jagt, James Kijas, Laercio R. Porto-Neto","doi":"10.1186/s12711-024-00879-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-024-00879-6","url":null,"abstract":"The study of ancestral alleles provides insights into the evolutionary history, selection, and genetic structures of a population. In cattle, ancestral alleles are widely used in genetic analyses, including the detection of signatures of selection, determination of breed ancestry, and identification of admixture. Having a comprehensive list of ancestral alleles is expected to improve the accuracy of these genetic analyses. However, the list of ancestral alleles in cattle, especially at the whole genome sequence level, is far from complete. In fact, the current largest list of ancestral alleles (~ 42 million) represents less than 28% of the total number of detected variants in cattle. To address this issue and develop a genomic resource for evolutionary studies, we determined ancestral alleles in cattle by comparing prior derived whole-genome sequence variants to an out-species group using a population-based likelihood ratio test. Our study determined and makes available the largest list of ancestral alleles in cattle to date (70.1 million) and includes 2.3 million on the X chromosome. There was high concordance (97.6%) of the determined ancestral alleles with those from previous studies when only high-probability ancestral alleles were considered (29.8 million positions) and another 23.5 million high-confidence ancestral alleles were novel, expanding the available reference list to improve the accuracies of genetic analyses involving ancestral alleles. The high concordance of the results with previous studies implies that our approach using genomic sequence variants and a likelihood ratio test to determine ancestral alleles is appropriate. Considering the high concordance of ancestral alleles across studies, the ancestral alleles determined in this study including those not previously listed, particularly those with high-probability estimates, may be used for further genetic analyses with reasonable accuracy. Our approach that used predetermined variants in species and the likelihood ratio test to determine ancestral alleles is applicable to other species for which sequence level genotypes are available.","PeriodicalId":55120,"journal":{"name":"Genetics Selection Evolution","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139695588","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Inbreeding depression is associated with recent homozygous-by-descent segments in Belgian Blue beef cattle.","authors":"Maulana Mughitz Naji, José Luis Gualdrón Duarte, Natalia Soledad Forneris, Tom Druet","doi":"10.1186/s12711-024-00878-7","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12711-024-00878-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Cattle populations harbor generally high inbreeding levels that can lead to inbreeding depression (ID). Here, we study ID with different estimators of the inbreeding coefficient F, evaluate their sensitivity to used allele frequencies (founder versus sample allele frequencies), and compare effects from recent and ancient inbreeding.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We used data from 14,205 Belgian Blue beef cattle genotyped cows that were phenotyped for 11 linear classification traits. We computed estimators of F based on the pedigree information (F_PED), on the correlation between uniting gametes (F_UNI), on the genomic relationship matrix (F_GRM), on excess homozygosity (F_HET), or on homozygous-by-descent (HBD) segments (F_HBD).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>F_UNI and F_GRM were sensitive to used allele frequencies, whereas F_HET and F_HBD were more robust. We detected significant ID for four traits related to height and length; F_HBD and F_UNI presenting the strongest associations. Then, we took advantage of the classification of HBD segments in different age-related classes (the length of an HBD segment being inversely related to the number of generations to the common ancestors) to determine that recent HBD classes (common ancestors present approximately up to 15 generations in the past) presented stronger ID than more ancient HBD classes. We performed additional analyses to check whether these observations could result from a lower level of variation in ancient HBD classes, or from a reduced precision to identify these shorter segments.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Overall, our results suggest that mutational load decreases with haplotype age, and that mating plans should consider mainly the levels of recent inbreeding.</p>","PeriodicalId":55120,"journal":{"name":"Genetics Selection Evolution","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10832232/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139652237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Correction: Validation of reaction norm breeding values for robustness in Australian sheep","authors":"Dominic L. Waters, Sam A. Clark, Daniel J. Brown, Samuel F. Walkom, Julius H. J. van der Werf","doi":"10.1186/s12711-024-00877-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-024-00877-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>\u0000<b>Correction: Genetics Selection Evolution (2024) 56:4 </b><b>https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-023-00872-5</b></p><p>After publication of this original article [1], we noticed that an error was introduced in Eq. (2) page 3 which should be:</p><span>$$mathbf{y}=mathbf{X}mathbf{b}+{mathbf{Z}}_{1}{mathbf{a}}_{mathbf{0}}+{mathbf{Z}}_{mathbf{2}}{mathbf{a}}_{mathbf{1}}+{mathbf{Z}}_{mathbf{3}}mathbf{c}+mathbf{Q}mathbf{g}+{mathbf{e}},$$</span>(2)<p>instead of :</p><span>$$mathbf{y}=mathbf{X}mathbf{b}+{Pmathbf{Z}}_{mathbf{1}}{mathbf{a}}_{mathbf{0}}+{mathbf{Z}}_{mathbf{2}}{mathbf{a}}_{mathbf{1}}+{mathbf{Z}}_{mathbf{3}}mathbf{c}+mathbf{Q}mathbf{g}+{mathbf{e}}.$$</span><ol data-track-component=\"outbound reference\"><li data-counter=\"1.\"><p>Waters DL, Clark SA, Brown DJ, Walkom SF, van der Werf HJ. Validation of reaction norm breeding values for robustness in Australian sheep. Genet Sel Evol. 2024;56:4. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-023-00872-5.</p><p>Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar </p></li></ol><p>Download references<svg aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\" height=\"16\" role=\"img\" width=\"16\"><use xlink:href=\"#icon-eds-i-download-medium\" xmlns:xlink=\"http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink\"></use></svg></p><h3>Authors and Affiliations</h3><ol><li><p>School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, 2351, Australia</p><p>Dominic L. Waters, Sam A. Clark &amp; Julius H. J. van der Werf</p></li><li><p>Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, 2351, Australia</p><p>Dominic L. Waters, Daniel J. Brown &amp; Samuel F. Walkom</p></li></ol><span>Authors</span><ol><li><span>Dominic L. Waters</span>View author publications<p>You can also search for this author in <span>PubMed<span> </span>Google Scholar</span></p></li><li><span>Sam A. Clark</span>View author publications<p>You can also search for this author in <span>PubMed<span> </span>Google Scholar</span></p></li><li><span>Daniel J. Brown</span>View author publications<p>You can also search for this author in <span>PubMed<span> </span>Google Scholar</span></p></li><li><span>Samuel F. Walkom</span>View author publications<p>You can also search for this author in <span>PubMed<span> </span>Google Scholar</span></p></li><li><span>Julius H. J. van der Werf</span>View author publications<p>You can also search for this author in <span>PubMed<span> </span>Google Scholar</span></p></li></ol><h3>Corresponding author</h3><p>Correspondence to Dominic L. Waters.</p><h3>Publisher’s Note</h3><p>Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.</p><p>The online version of the original article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-023-00872-5.</p><p><b>Open Access</b> This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate cred","PeriodicalId":55120,"journal":{"name":"Genetics Selection Evolution","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139551074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The potential of microbiota information to better predict efficiency traits in growing pigs fed a conventional and a high-fiber diet","authors":"Vanille Déru, Francesco Tiezzi, Céline Carillier-Jacquin, Benoit Blanchet, Laurent Cauquil, Olivier Zemb, Alban Bouquet, Christian Maltecca, Hélène Gilbert","doi":"10.1186/s12711-023-00865-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-023-00865-4","url":null,"abstract":"Improving pigs’ ability to digest diets with an increased dietary fiber content is a lever to improve feed efficiency and limit feed costs in pig production. The aim of this study was to determine whether information on the gut microbiota and host genetics can contribute to predict digestive efficiency (DE, i.e. digestibility coefficients of energy, organic matter, and nitrogen), feed efficiency (FE, i.e. feed conversion ratio and residual feed intake), average daily gain, and daily feed intake phenotypes. Data were available for 1082 pigs fed a conventional or high-fiber diet. Fecal samples were collected at 16 weeks, and DE was estimated using near‑infrared spectrometry. A cross-validation approach was used to predict traits within the same diet, for the opposite diet, and for a combination of both diets, by implementing three models, i.e. with only genomic (Gen), only microbiota (Micro), and both genomic and microbiota information (Micro+Gen). The predictive ability with and without sharing common sires and breeding environment was also evaluated. Prediction accuracy of the phenotypes was calculated as the correlation between model prediction and phenotype adjusted for fixed effects. Prediction accuracies of the three models were low to moderate (< 0.47) for growth and FE traits and not significantly different between models. In contrast, for DE traits, prediction accuracies of model Gen were low (< 0.30) and those of models Micro and Micro+Gen were moderate to high (> 0.52). Prediction accuracies were not affected by the stratification of diets in the reference and validation sets and were in the same order of magnitude within the same diet, for the opposite diet, and for the combination of both diets. Prediction accuracies of the three models were significantly higher when pigs in the reference and validation populations shared common sires and breeding environment than when they did not (P < 0.001). The microbiota is a relevant source of information to predict DE regardless of the diet, but not to predict growth and FE traits for which prediction accuracies were similar to those obtained with genomic information only. Further analyses on larger datasets and more diverse diets should be carried out to complement and consolidate these results.","PeriodicalId":55120,"journal":{"name":"Genetics Selection Evolution","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139494692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Simulation of dual-purpose chicken breeding programs implementing gene editing.","authors":"Edward Y S Chuang, Robin Wellmann, Franck L B Meijboom, Jens Tetens, Jörn Bennewitz","doi":"10.1186/s12711-023-00874-3","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12711-023-00874-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>In spite of being controversial and raising ethical concerns, the application of gene editing is more likely to be accepted when it contributes to improving animal welfare. One of the animal welfare and ethical issues in chicken breeding is chick culling, the killing of the male layer chicks after hatching due to the poor fattening performance. Although establishing dual-purpose chicken lines could solve this problem, unfavorable genetic correlations between egg and meat production traits hindered their competitiveness. Although it is also controversial in ethical terms, gene editing may accelerate genetic progress in dual-purpose chicken and alleviate the ethical concerns from chick culling.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The simulation compared the utility improvement in dual-purpose use under two breeding schemes: one consisting in the improvement of the laying hens, and the second in the improvement of a synthetic line obtained from a layer broiler cross. In each breeding scheme, the breeding programs were simulated with and without gene editing. Polygenic breeding values and 500 simulated quantitative trait loci (QTL) with different levels of pleiotropy caused negative correlations between egg production, meat production, and overall health. The results of the simulation demonstrated that genetic gain could be accelerated by at most 81% for several generations if gene editing was used. The actual increase in genetic gain depended on the number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) being edited per animal. The rate of genetic improvement became equal in scenarios with and without gene editing after 20 generations. This is because the remaining segregating QTL had small effects and their edition would have negative overall health effects from potential off-target edits. Although gene editing can improve genetic gain in quantitative traits, it can only be recommended as long as QTL with reasonable effect sizes are segregating and detectable.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This simulation demonstrates the potential of gene editing to accelerate the simultaneous improvement of negatively correlated traits. When the risk of negative consequences from gene editing persists, the number of SNPs to be edited should be chosen carefully to obtain the optimal genetic gain.</p>","PeriodicalId":55120,"journal":{"name":"Genetics Selection Evolution","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10795215/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139486818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A cautionary tale of low-pass sequencing and imputation with respect to haplotype accuracy","authors":"David Wragg, Wengang Zhang, Sarah Peterson, Murthy Yerramilli, Richard Mellanby, Jeffrey J. Schoenebeck, Dylan N. Clements","doi":"10.1186/s12711-024-00875-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-024-00875-w","url":null,"abstract":"Low-pass whole-genome sequencing and imputation offer significant cost savings, enabling substantial increases in sample size and statistical power. This approach is particularly promising in livestock breeding, providing an affordable means of screening individuals for deleterious alleles or calculating genomic breeding values. Consequently, it may also be of value in companion animal genomics to support pedigree breeding. We sought to evaluate in dogs the impact of low coverage sequencing and reference-guided imputation on genotype concordance and association analyses. DNA isolated from saliva of 30 Labrador retrievers was sequenced at low (0.9X and 3.8X) and high (43.5X) coverage, and down-sampled from 43.5X to 9.6X and 17.4X. Genotype imputation was performed using a diverse reference panel (1021 dogs), and two subsets of the former panel (256 dogs each) where one had an excess of Labrador retrievers relative to other breeds. We observed little difference in imputed genotype concordance between reference panels. Association analyses for a locus acting as a disease proxy were performed using single-marker (GEMMA) and haplotype-based (XP-EHH) tests. GEMMA results were highly correlated (r ≥ 0.97) between 43.5X and ≥ 3.8X depths of coverage, while for 0.9X the correlation was lower (r ≤ 0.8). XP-EHH results were less well correlated, with r ranging from 0.58 (0.9X) to 0.88 (17.4X). Across a random sample of 10,000 genomic regions averaging 17 kb in size, we observed a median of three haplotypes per dog across the sequencing depths, with 5% of the regions returning more than eight haplotypes. Inspection of one such region revealed genotype and phasing inconsistencies across sequencing depths. We demonstrate that saliva-derived canine DNA is suitable for whole-genome sequencing, highlighting the feasibility of client-based sampling. Low-pass sequencing and imputation require caution as incorrect allele assignments result when the subject possesses alleles that are absent in the reference panel. Larger panels have the capacity for greater allelic diversity, which should reduce the potential for imputation error. Although low-pass sequencing can accurately impute allele dosage, we highlight issues with phasing accuracy that impact haplotype-based analyses. Consequently, if accurately phased genotypes are required for analyses, we advocate sequencing at high depth (> 20X).","PeriodicalId":55120,"journal":{"name":"Genetics Selection Evolution","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139431376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Advances in understanding the genetic architecture of antibody response to paratuberculosis in sheep by heritability estimate and LDLA mapping analyses and investigation of candidate regions using sequence-based data","authors":"Mario Graziano Usai, Sara Casu, Tiziana Sechi, Sotero L. Salaris, Sabrina Miari, Giuliana Mulas, Maria Giovanna Cancedda, Ciriaco Ligios, Antonello Carta","doi":"10.1186/s12711-023-00873-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-023-00873-4","url":null,"abstract":"Paratuberculosis is a contagious and incurable disease that is caused by Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) with significant negative effects on animal welfare and farm profitability. Based on a large naturally infected flock over 12 years, we analyzed repeated enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay tests (ELISA), OvineSNP50 BeadChip genotypes and whole-genome sequences imputed from 56 influential animals. The main goals were to estimate the genetic parameters of proxy traits for resistance to MAP, identify genomic regions associated with the host’s immune response against MAP and search for candidate genes and causative mutations through association and functional annotation analyses of polymorphisms identified by sequencing. Two variables were derived from ELISA tests. The first, a binary variable, assessed the infection status of each animal over the entire productive life, while the second considered the level of antibody recorded over time. Very similar results were obtained for both variables. Heritability estimates of about 0.20 were found and a significant region capturing 18% and 13% of the genetic variance was detected on ovine chromosome 20 by linkage disequilibrium and linkage analysis on OvineSNP50 positions. Functional annotation and association analyses on the imputed sequence polymorphisms that were identified in this region were carried out. No significant variants showed a functional effect on the genes that mapped to this region, most of which belong to the major histocompatibility complex class II (MHC II). However, the conditional analysis led to the identification of two significant polymorphisms that can explain the genetic variance associated with the investigated genomic region. Our results confirm the involvement of the host’s genetics in susceptibility to MAP in sheep and suggest that selective breeding may be an option to limit the infection. The estimated heritability is moderate with a relevant portion being due to a highly significant region on ovine chromosome 20. The results of the combined use of sequence-based data and functional analyses suggest several genes belonging to the MHC II as the most likely candidates, although no mutations in their coding regions showed a significant association. Nevertheless, information from genotypes of two highly significant polymorphisms in the region can enhance the efficiency of selective breeding programs.","PeriodicalId":55120,"journal":{"name":"Genetics Selection Evolution","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139407893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Validation of reaction norm breeding values for robustness in Australian sheep","authors":"Dominic L. Waters, Sam A. Clark, Daniel J. Brown, Samuel F. Walkom, Julius H. J. van der Werf","doi":"10.1186/s12711-023-00872-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-023-00872-5","url":null,"abstract":"There can be variation between animals in how stable their genetic merit is across different environments due to genotype-by-environment (G×E) interactions. This variation could be used in breeding programs to select robust genotypes that combine high overall performance with stable genetic ranking across environments. There have been few attempts to validate breeding values for robustness in livestock, although this is a necessary step towards their implementation in selection decisions. The objective of this study was to validate breeding values for the robustness of body weight across different growth environments that were estimated using reaction norm models in sheep data. Using threefold cross-validation for the progeny of 337 sires, the average correlation between single-step breeding values for the reaction norm slope and the realised robustness of progeny across different growth environments was 0.21. The correlation between breeding values for the reaction slope estimated independently in two different datasets linked by common sires was close to the expected correlation based on theory. Slope estimated breeding values (EBV) obtained using reaction norm models were predictive of the phenotypic robustness of progeny across different environments and were consistent for sires with progeny in two different datasets. Selection based on reaction norm EBV could be used to increase the robustness of a population to environmental variation.","PeriodicalId":55120,"journal":{"name":"Genetics Selection Evolution","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139101372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The demographic history and adaptation of Canarian goat breeds to environmental conditions through the use of genome-wide SNP data","authors":"Gabriele Senczuk, Martina Macrì, Marika Di Civita, Salvatore Mastrangelo, Maria del Rosario Fresno, Juan Capote, Fabio Pilla, Juan Vicente Delgado, Marcel Amills, Amparo Martínez","doi":"10.1186/s12711-023-00869-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-023-00869-0","url":null,"abstract":"The presence of goats in the Canary Islands dates back to the late 1st millennium BC, which coincides with the colonization by the Amazigh settlers. However, the exact geographic origin of Canarian goats is uncertain since the Amazigh peoples were distributed over a wide spatial range. Nowadays, three Canarian breeds (Palmera, Majorera and Tinerfeña) are officially recognized, along with two distinct South and North Tinerfeña ecotypes, with the South Tinerfeña and Majorera goats thriving in arid and dry semi-desertic environments and the Palmera and North Tinerfeña goats are adapted to humid and temperate areas that are influenced by trade winds. Genotypes for 224 Canarian goats were generated using the Illumina Goat single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)50 BeadChip. By merging these data with the genotypes from 1007 individuals of African and Southern European ancestry, our aim was to ascertain the geographic origin of the Canarian goats and identify genes associated with adaptation to diverse environmental conditions. The diversity indices of the Canarian breeds align with most of those of the analyzed local breeds from Africa and Europe, except for the Palmera goats that showed lower levels of genetic variation. The Canarian breeds demonstrate a significant genetic differentiation compared to other populations, which indicates a history of prolonged geographic isolation. Moreover, the phylogenetic reconstruction indicated that the ancestry of the Canarian goats is fundamentally North African rather than West African. The ADMIXTURE and the TreeMix analyses showed no evidence of gene flow between Canarian goats and other continental breeds. The analysis of runs of homozygosity (ROH) identified 13 ROH islands while the window-based FST method detected 25 genomic regions under selection. Major signals of selection were found on Capra hircus (CHI) chromosomes 6, 7, and 10 using various comparisons and methods. This genome-wide analysis sheds new light on the evolutionary history of the four breeds that inhabit the Canary Islands. Our findings suggest a North African origin of the Canarian goats. In addition, within the genomic regions highlighted by the ROH and FST approaches, several genes related to body size and heat tolerance were identified.","PeriodicalId":55120,"journal":{"name":"Genetics Selection Evolution","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139082013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Estimating the heritability of nitrogen and carbon isotopes in the tail hair of beef cattle","authors":"Morteza Moradi, Christie L. Warburton, Laercio Ribeiro Porto-Neto, Luis F. P. Silva","doi":"10.1186/s12711-023-00870-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-023-00870-7","url":null,"abstract":"The natural abundance of nitrogen (δ15N) and carbon (δ13C) isotopes in animal tissues are used to estimate an animal’s efficiency in nitrogen utilization, and their feed conversion efficiency, especially in tropical grazing systems with prolonged protein restriction. It is postulated that selection for improving these two characteristics (δ15N and δ13C) would assist the optimisation of the adaptation in ever-changing environments, particularly in response to climate change. The aim of this study was to determine the heritability of δ15N and δ13C in the tail hair of tropically adapted beef cattle to validate their inclusion in genetic breeding programs. In total, 492 steers from two breeds, Brahman (n = 268) and Droughtmaster (n = 224) were used in this study. These steers were managed in two mixed breed contemporary groups across two years (year of weaning): steers weaned in 2019 (n = 250) and 2020 (n = 242). Samples of tail switch hair representing hair segments grown during the dry season were collected and analysed for δ15N and δ13C with isotope-ratio mass spectrometry. Heritability and variance components were estimated in a univariate multibreed (and single breed) animal model in WOMBAT and ASReml using three generations of full pedigree. The estimated heritability of both traits was significantly different from 0, i.e. 0.43 ± 0.14 and 0.41 ± 0.15 for δ15N and δ13C, respectively. These traits had favourable moderate to high genetic and phenotypic correlations (− 0.78 ± 0.16 and − 0.40 ± 0.04, respectively). The study also provides informative single-breed results in spite of the limited sample size, with estimated heritability values of 0.37 ± 0.19 and 0.19 ± 0.17 for δ15N and δ13C in Brahman, and 0.36 ± 0.21 and 0.46 ± 0.22 for δ15N and δ13C in Droughtmaster, respectively. The findings of this study show, for the first time, that the natural abundances of both nitrogen and carbon isotopes in the tail hair in cattle may be moderately heritable. With further research and validation, tail hair isotopes can become a practical tool for the large-scale selection of more efficient cattle.","PeriodicalId":55120,"journal":{"name":"Genetics Selection Evolution","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139081989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}