Genetic Architecture of Carcass and Meat Quality Traits in Montana Tropical® Composite Beef Cattle

Abstract

The Montana Tropical ® Composite is a recently developed beef cattle population that is rapidly expanding in Brazil and other tropical countries. This is mainly due to its improved meat quality and adaptation to tropical climate conditions compared to Zebu and Taurine cattle breeds, respectively. This study aimed to investigate the genetic architecture of ultrasound-based carcass and meat quality traits in Montana Tropical ® Composite beef cattle. Therefore, we estimated variance components and genetic parameters and performed genome-wide association studies using the weighted single-step Genomic Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (GBLUP) approach. A pedigree dataset containing 28,480 animals was used, in which 1,436 were genotyped using a moderate-density Single Nucleotide Polymorphism panel (30K; 30,105 SNPs). A total of 9,358, 5,768, 7,996, and 1,972 phenotypic records for the traits Longissimus muscle area (LMA), backfat thickness (BFT), rump fat thickness (RFT), and for marbling score (MARB), respectively, were used for the analyses. Moderate to high heritability estimates were obtained and ranged from 0.16 ± 0.03 (RFT) to 0.33 ± 0.05 (MARB). A high genetic correlation was observed between BFT and RFT (0.97 ± 0.02), suggesting that a similar set of genes affects both traits. The most relevant genomic regions associated with LMA, BFT, RFT, and MARB were found on BTA10 (5.4-5.8 Mb), BTA27 (25.2-25.5 Mb), BTA18 (60.6-61.0 Mb), and BTA21 (14.8-15.4 Mb). Two overlapping genomic regions were identified for RFT and MARB (BTA13:47.9-48.1 Mb) and for BFT and RFT (BTA13:61.5-62.3 Mb). Candidate genes identified in this study, including PLAG1, LYN, WWOX, and PLAGL2, were previously reported to be associated with growth, stature, skeletal muscle growth, fat thickness, and fatty acid composition. Our results indicate that ultrasoundbased carcass and meat quality traits in the Montana Tropical ® Composite beef cattle are heritable, and therefore, can be improved through selective breeding. In addition, various novel and already known genomic regions related to these traits were identified, which contribute to a better understanding of the underlying genetic background of LMA, BFT, RFT, and MARB in the Montana Tropical Composite population.

Fifteen Shades of Grey: Combined Analysis of Genome-Wide SNP Data in Steppe and Mediterranean Grey Cattle Sheds New Light on the Molecular Basis of Coat Color

“…Such a large geographic distribution may be consistent with known ancient migration and admixture events during dispersal of cattle out of the domestication center [17,18,20,[55][56][57][58][59][60][61] as well as more recent historical migrations between Asia and Europe and in the Mediterranean [27,62], although admixture phenomena among wild taurine and zebuine progenitors may not be ruled out. Interestingly, we found that several of the candidate genes on BTA14 (XKR4, TMEM68, TGS1, LYN, CHCHD7, SDR16C5, PENK, TOX, RPS20, PLAG1) had been previously reported to harbor signals of selection/association in taurine/zebuine composite populations or zebuine breeds [63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78]. This evidence possibly supports the speculation that pigment-related gene variants and phenotypes in grey taurine cattle may represent a heritage of zebuine origin, despite the fact that, for PLAG1, an allele with major effects on body size, weight, and reproduction has been shown to be a >1000 year-old-derived allele that increased rapidly in frequency in Northwestern European B. taurus between the 16th and 18th centuries, and that was hence introgressed, towards the 19th and 20th centuries, into non-European B. taurus and Bos indicus breeds likely to increase the stature of modern cattle [79,80].…”

Genome-wide scan for selection signatures reveals novel insights into the adaptive capacity in local North African cattle

“…Another relevant candidate region on BTA21 (at position: 14,830,000-16,650,000 bp) harboured four protein coding genes: SLCO3A1, SV2B, AKAP13 and KLHL25. The latter two genes were shown to be under positive selection in Creole cattle breeds 38 while SLCO3A1 is associated with marbling score in the Montana Tropical Composite beef cattle 39 and mediates inflammatory processes in intestinal epithelial cells through NF-kappa-B transcription activation in humans 40 . SV2B gene is among major genes enriched for the extracellular matrix (ECM) around the hair follicle in Changthangi goats 41 .…”

Signatures of Selection in CompositeVrindavaniCattle of India

“…On BTA14, FAM110B and UBXN2B genes were identified to be associated with productive traits, reproductive traits (Grigoletto et al, 2019) and feed efficiency (Seabury et al, 2017). Flori et al (2009) has also reported FAM110 as selection signature for dairy cattle under artificial selection.…”