Genome-wide search for associations with QTL of beef productivity in cattle of Kazakh White-headed and Auliekol breeds

Abstract

Genomic breeding is a very young field of science, which has quickly become the most modern methodology in the world for selecting breeding schemes for farm animals, especially cattle. The high efficiency of genomic selection is due to the identification at an early age of genetically elite animals based on information about the state of single-nucleotide polymorphisms of DNA genome. With the help of increased accuracy of selection at a young age, generation intervals can be shortened and genetic progress in animal husbandry can be signifi cantly accelerated. The purpose of the work was a genome-wide search for associations with QTL of beef productivity in cattle of Kazakh Whiteheaded and Auliekol breeds. The results of the genome-wide search for SNP associations of beef cattle of Kazakh White-headed and Auliekol breeds with QTL responsible for traits of beef productivity have been reflected in the paper. SNP typing of animals was carried out using a GeneSeek GGP Bovine 150K biochip with an average coverage density of 150 000 SNP (Illumina Inc., USA). The genome-wide association study was performed using Plink. Polymorphic sites were annotated with rs identifiers using the SNP ChimpV3 database. Using rs identifiers, polymorphic sites were annotated using the Ensembl database to obtain information about the type of mutation, localization in the gene, potential effect, etc. Identifiers rs were also used to annotate SNPs using QTL using the cattle QTL database. It is shown that in both breeds at a significance level of 0,00001 and 0,001, QTL are detected that are not described in the QTL Cattle DB databases. The analysis of the distribution of significant SNPs by chromosomes was given.