Determination of genetic variation within the DYRK2 gene and its associations with milk traits in cattle

To speed up the progress of marker-assisted selection (MAS) in cattle breeding, the dual-specificity tyrosine phosphorylation-regulated kinase 2 (DYRK2), cadherin 2 (CDH2), and kinesin family member 1A (KIF1A) genes were chosen based on our pervious genome-wide association study (GWAS) analysis results. DYRK2 is a kinase that may participate in cell growth and/or development; it shows phosphorylation activity toward serine, threonine, and tyrosine fragments of proteins, and it is different from other protein kinases. The CDH2 gene encodes a classic cadherin, which is a member of the cadherin superfamily. The protein encoded by KIF1A is a member of the kinesin family and plays a role in the transportation of membrane organelles along axon microtubules. We detected insertion/deletion (InDel) variation in these three candidate genes in 438 individual cattle (Xinjiang Brown cattle and Wagyu [Formula: see text] Luxi crossbreed cattle). Only DYRK2-P3-11 bp was polymorphic and genotyped. The polymorphism information content of DYRK2-P3-11 bp was 0.336. Correlation analyses showed that InDel polymorphism was significantly associated with six different milk traits. These findings may aid future analyses of InDel genotypes in cattle breeds, and speed up the progress of MAS in cattle breeding.