Mitochondrial genomes from modern and ancient Turano-Mongolian cattle reveal an ancient diversity of taurine maternal lineages in East Asia

Abstract

Turano-Mongolian cattle are a group of taurine cattle from Northern and Eastern Asia with distinct morphological traits, which are known for their ability to tolerate harsh environments, such as the Asian steppe and the Tibetan plateau. Through the analysis of 170 mitogenomes from ten modern breeds, two sub-lineages within T3 (T3 119 and T3 055 ) were identified as specific of Turano-Mongolian cattle. These two T3 sub-lineages, together with the previously identified T4, were also present in six Neolithic samples, dated to ~3900 years BP, which might represent the earliest domestic taurine stocks from Southwest Asia. The rare haplogroup Q, found in three Tibetan cattle, testifies for the legacy of ancient migrations from Southwest Asia and suggests that the isolated Tibetan Plateau preserved unique prehistoric genetic resources. These findings confirm the geographic substructure of Turano-Mongolian cattle breeds, which have been shaped by ancient migrations and geographic barriers.

Deleterious protein-coding variants in diverse cattle breeds of the world

“…Breeds containing multiple haplogroups are old (longer coalescence time) and their diversity is expected to be high. These patterns are evident from many studies (Table 1 in [ 40 ]; Supplementary Table S1 in [ 39 ]; and Table 1 in [ 38 ]). Therefore, the relationship between breed types (taurine or indicine) and mitochondrial nucleotide diversities is complex and needs to be inferred based on the context of haplogroups.…”

“…Studies on mitochondrial genomes reported a similar or lower diversity in indicine mitogenomes compared to those of taurine breeds [ 37 – 40 ]. However, this could be attributed to the number and types of haplogroups present in each breed.…”

“…Therefore, the mitochondrial genome diversity depends on the combination of haplogroups. Breeds with both indicine (I) and taurine (T, P, Q, R or E) haplogroups have a high diversity, whereas breeds with only indicine or only taurine haplogroups have a low diversity [ 38 – 40 ]. Furthermore, within the taurine lineage, breeds containing multiple haplogroups (e.g.…”

“…T and P lineages) have a higher diversity than those that have only one haplogroup (e.g. T) [ 40 ]. This is because diversity is proportional to the coalescence time (age) of the mitochondrial genomes of the breed [ 41 , 42 ].…”

Large‐scale mitogenome sequencing reveals consecutive expansions of domestic taurine cattle and supports sporadic aurochs introgression

“…Until recently, only several ancient or historical P haplotypes were documented in GenBank: British aurochs Pre‐Neolithic (6.7 kyBP; GU985279); historical Polish aurochs (1.5 kyBP; JQ437479); three historical ‘Danish’ aurochs (MF169211, MF169212 and MF169213; all 0.6 kyBP); and one modern cattle (Korean beef cattle sample DQ124389). After all our mitogenome analyses were completed, 14 individuals with haplotypes several mutations away from the Korean sequence DQ124389 were found in the Japanese Shorthorn (Mannen et al, 2020 ) and one in Chinese (Yanbian) individual (Xia et al, 2021 ). In the MJN (Figure 2c and Figure S1 ), the P haplotype found in Murbodner cattle (MZ901404‐08) was closest (11 mutations) to the reference Pre‐Neolithic aurochs (GU985279).…”