Publication Date:
2012-06-11
Description:
Background: Significant quantitative trait loci (QTL) for carcass weight were previously mapped onseveral chromosomes in Japanese Black half-sib families. Two QTL, CW-1 and CW-2, werenarrowed down to 1.1-Mb and 591-kb regions, respectively. Recent advances in genomictools allowed us to perform a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in cattle to detectassociations in a general population and estimate their effect size. Here, we performed aGWAS for carcass weight using 1156 Japanese Black steers. Results: Bonferroni-corrected genome-wide significant associations were detected in threechromosomal regions on bovine chromosomes (BTA) 6, 8, and 14. The associated singlenucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) on BTA 6 were in linkage disequilibrium with the SNPencoding NCAPG Ile442Met, which was previously identified as a candidate quantitativetrait nucleotide for CW-2. In contrast, the most highly associated SNP on BTA 14 waslocated 2.3-Mb centromeric from the previously identified CW-1 region. Linkagedisequilibrium mapping led to a revision of the CW-1 region within a 0.9-Mb interval aroundthe associated SNP, and targeted resequencing followed by association analysis highlightedthe quantitative trait nucleotide for bovine stature in the PLAG1-CHCHD7 intergenic region.The association on BTA 8 was accounted for by two SNP on the BovineSNP50 BeadChipand corresponded to CW-3, which was simultaneously detected by linkage analyses usinghalf-sib families. The allele substitution effects of CW-1, CW-2, and CW-3 were 28.4, 35.3,and 35.0 kg per allele, respectively. Conclusion: The GWAS revealed the genetic architecture underlying carcass weight variation in JapaneseBlack cattle in which three major QTL accounted for approximately one-third of the geneticvariance.
Electronic ISSN:
1471-2156
Topics:
Biology
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