SNP Genotyping Characterizes the Genome Composition of the New Baisary Fat-Tailed Sheep Breed

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Historically, sheep breeding has played a key role in Kazakhstan. At present, due to the population’s increasing meat consumption, there is a high interest in the distribution of sheep breeds of different productivity levels. In our study, we describe the genetic structure and results of population analysis of a new breed called Baisary, which belongs to the meat-fat breeds and has favorable phenotypic traits. We reveal that this breed is genetically differentiated from its ancestors and other breeds, and shortly, it could be registered as a separate breed. This study helps with understanding the gene pool and genetic diversity of sheep breeds in Kazakhstan and should increase farmers’ interest in Baisary sheep. ABSTRACT: Lamb meat has become increasingly popular in several nations during the last few decades, especially in Kazakhstan. Due to the rising demand for lamb meat, our sheep breeders developed a new fat-tailed sheep and named the breed Baisary. Animals of the Baisary breed are characterized by a large physique, strong constitution, stretched body, deep and wide chest, medium or large-sized fat tail, long legs (height at the withers of adult rams 85–100 cm, sheep 75–90 cm), long lanceolate ears and strong hooves. Lambs of the Baisary breed surpass their peers of the original parent breeds by 15–20% in live weight at the weaning period. To characterize the genetic structure of Baisary sheep and compare it with the ancestral breeds, we genotyped 247 individuals from five sheep breeds with Ovine SNP50K. The estimated private allelic richness ranged from 0.0030 to 0.0047, with the minimum and maximum provided by the Gissar (Giss1) and Kazakh meat-wool breeds, respectively. The highest and lowest F(IS) values, meanwhile, were observed in the Afghan fat-tailed population and Baisary sheep, respectively. The calculated inbreeding coefficient showed that Edilbay and Baisary sheep have excess heterozygosity. According to principal components analysis, Baisary are close to Gissar populations, the Afghan fat-tailed breed and Edilbay sheep. These results were consistent with the Admixture and phylogenetic analysis. Overall, our results indicated that Baisary sheep differ genetically from their progenitors.