Genetic basis of ear length in sheep breeds sampled across the region from the Middle East to the Alps

Author:

Klawatsch Jürgen12ORCID,Papachristou Dimitris3,Koutsouli Panagiota3,Upadhyay Maulik1,Seichter Doris2,Russ Ingolf2,Mioč Boro4,Simčič Mojca5,Bizelis Iosif3,Medugorac Ivica1ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Population Genomics Group, Department of Veterinary Sciences Ludwig Maximillians University Munich Munich Germany

2. Tierzuchtforschung e.V. Munich Grub Germany

3. Department of Animal Science Agricultural University of Athens Athens Greece

4. Department of Animal Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture University of Zagreb Zagreb Croatia

5. Department of Animal Science, Biotechnical Faculty University of Ljubljana Ljubljana Slovenia

Abstract

AbstractEar length in sheep (Ovis aries) shows a wide range of natural variation, from the absence of an outer ear structure (anotia), to small outer ears (microtia), to regular ear length. Up until now, the underlying genetics of this phenotype has been studied in four sheep breeds from China, Jordan and Italy. These studies revealed a broad range of genes significantly associated with ear length, potentially indicating genetic heterogeneity across breeds or geographic regions. In the current study, we performed genome‐wide SNP genotyping and haplotype‐based mapping, in a population of 340 individuals, to identify loci influencing ear length variation in additional sheep breeds from Slovenia, Croatia, Cyprus and Greece. Additionally, two previously described candidate variants were also genotyped in our mapping population. The mapping model without candidate variant genotypes revealed only one genome‐wide significant signal, which was located next to HMX1 on OAR6. This region was previously described as being associated with ear length variation in the Altay and Awassi sheep breeds. The mapping model including the candidate duplication genotype near HMX1 as a fixed effect explained the phenotypic variance on OAR6 and revealed an additional genome‐wide significant locus on OAR13 associated with ear length. Our results, combined with published evidence, suggest that a duplication in the evolutionarily conserved region near HMX1 is the major regulator of ear length in sheep breeds descended from a larger region from Central Asia, to the Middle East, Cyprus, Greece and to the Alps. This distribution suggests an ancient origin of the derived allele.

Funder

Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst

Publisher

Wiley

Subject

Genetics,Animal Science and Zoology,General Medicine

Reference38 articles.

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