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Genome-wide association study provides strong evidence of genes affecting the reproductive performance of Nellore beef cows

Reproductive traits are economically important for beef cattle production; however, these traits are still a bottleneck in indicine cattle since these animals typically reach puberty at older ages when compared to taurine breeds. In addition, reproductive traits are complex phenotypes, i.e., they ar...

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Autores principales: de Melo, Thaise Pinto, de Camargo, Gregório Miguel Ferreira, de Albuquerque, Lucia Galvão, Carvalheiro, Roberto
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5451131/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28562680
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178551
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author de Melo, Thaise Pinto
de Camargo, Gregório Miguel Ferreira
de Albuquerque, Lucia Galvão
Carvalheiro, Roberto
author_facet de Melo, Thaise Pinto
de Camargo, Gregório Miguel Ferreira
de Albuquerque, Lucia Galvão
Carvalheiro, Roberto
author_sort de Melo, Thaise Pinto
collection PubMed
description Reproductive traits are economically important for beef cattle production; however, these traits are still a bottleneck in indicine cattle since these animals typically reach puberty at older ages when compared to taurine breeds. In addition, reproductive traits are complex phenotypes, i.e., they are controlled by both the environment and many small-effect genes involved in different pathways. In this study, we conducted genome-wide association study (GWAS) and functional analyses to identify important genes and pathways associated with heifer rebreeding (HR) and with the number of calvings at 53 months of age (NC53) in Nellore cows. A total of 142,878 and 244,311 phenotypes for HR and NC53, respectively, and 2,925 animals genotyped with the Illumina Bovine HD panel (Illumina(®), San Diego, CA, USA) were used in GWAS applying the weighted single-step GBLUP (WssGBLUP) method. Several genes associated with reproductive events were detected in the 20 most important 1Mb windows for both traits. Significant pathways for HR and NC53 were associated with lipid metabolism and immune processes, respectively. MHC class II genes, detected on chromosome 23 (window 25-26Mb) for NC53, were significantly associated with pregnancy success of Nellore cows. These genes have been proved previously to be associated with reproductive traits such as mate choice in other breeds and species. Our results suggest that genes associated with the reproductive traits HR and NC53 may be involved in embryo development in mammalian species. Furthermore, some genes associated with mate choice may affect pregnancy success in Nellore cattle.
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spelling pubmed-54511312017-06-12 Genome-wide association study provides strong evidence of genes affecting the reproductive performance of Nellore beef cows de Melo, Thaise Pinto de Camargo, Gregório Miguel Ferreira de Albuquerque, Lucia Galvão Carvalheiro, Roberto PLoS One Research Article Reproductive traits are economically important for beef cattle production; however, these traits are still a bottleneck in indicine cattle since these animals typically reach puberty at older ages when compared to taurine breeds. In addition, reproductive traits are complex phenotypes, i.e., they are controlled by both the environment and many small-effect genes involved in different pathways. In this study, we conducted genome-wide association study (GWAS) and functional analyses to identify important genes and pathways associated with heifer rebreeding (HR) and with the number of calvings at 53 months of age (NC53) in Nellore cows. A total of 142,878 and 244,311 phenotypes for HR and NC53, respectively, and 2,925 animals genotyped with the Illumina Bovine HD panel (Illumina(®), San Diego, CA, USA) were used in GWAS applying the weighted single-step GBLUP (WssGBLUP) method. Several genes associated with reproductive events were detected in the 20 most important 1Mb windows for both traits. Significant pathways for HR and NC53 were associated with lipid metabolism and immune processes, respectively. MHC class II genes, detected on chromosome 23 (window 25-26Mb) for NC53, were significantly associated with pregnancy success of Nellore cows. These genes have been proved previously to be associated with reproductive traits such as mate choice in other breeds and species. Our results suggest that genes associated with the reproductive traits HR and NC53 may be involved in embryo development in mammalian species. Furthermore, some genes associated with mate choice may affect pregnancy success in Nellore cattle. Public Library of Science 2017-05-31 /pmc/articles/PMC5451131/ /pubmed/28562680 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178551 Text en © 2017 Melo et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
de Melo, Thaise Pinto
de Camargo, Gregório Miguel Ferreira
de Albuquerque, Lucia Galvão
Carvalheiro, Roberto
Genome-wide association study provides strong evidence of genes affecting the reproductive performance of Nellore beef cows
title Genome-wide association study provides strong evidence of genes affecting the reproductive performance of Nellore beef cows
title_full Genome-wide association study provides strong evidence of genes affecting the reproductive performance of Nellore beef cows
title_fullStr Genome-wide association study provides strong evidence of genes affecting the reproductive performance of Nellore beef cows
title_full_unstemmed Genome-wide association study provides strong evidence of genes affecting the reproductive performance of Nellore beef cows
title_short Genome-wide association study provides strong evidence of genes affecting the reproductive performance of Nellore beef cows
title_sort genome-wide association study provides strong evidence of genes affecting the reproductive performance of nellore beef cows
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5451131/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28562680
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178551
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