Genome-wide association study (GWAS) for body weights of sussex cattle (Bos taurus) in South Africa

Abstract

Sussex cattle (Bos taurus) is one of beef cattle breeds in South Africa and it is possible to improve their genetic potential through genomic selection. The aim of this study was carried out to implement Genome-wide Association Study (GWAS) for determining candidate genes of body weights at birth, weaning and yearling stages in Sussex cattle. A total of 96 heads of Sussex cattle consisting of 45 females and 51 males were used for GWAS with Bovine 100K SNP BeadChip (Illumina, USA). The results showed that three SNP markers of BovineHD1000018504 (SNP1), BovineHD100008645 (SNP2) and BovineHD2500008434 (SNP3) were detected as the potential genetic markers for body weight of animals under this study. Among the three identified SNPs, SNP1 was not located in any gene region while SNP2 and SNP3 were located in the region of LOC100335918 (intron 3) and SCLT1 (intron10) genes, respectively. Therefore, both the identified SNPs had the relationship with the body weight at different ages of the Sussex cattle based on the Manhattan plot graphic i.e. birth weight (BW) for SNP2 and weaning weight (WW) for SNP3. In conclusion, a significant association was observed between SNP3 and WW of South African Sussex cattle. Nonetheless, there are no association between SNP2 and BW of Sussex cattle.

Keywords

• Body weights
• Candidate genes
• GWAS
• SNP markers
• Sussex cattle