Genome-wide association and prediction of direct genomic breeding values for composition of fatty acids in Angus beef cattlea

Abstract

BackgroundAs consumers continue to request food products that have health advantages, it will be important for the livestock industry to supply a product that meet these demands. One such nutrient is fatty acids, which have been implicated as playing a role in cardiovascular disease. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the extent to which molecular markers could account for variation in fatty acid composition of skeletal muscle and identify genomic regions that harbor genetic variation.ResultsSubsets of markers on the Illumina 54K bovine SNPchip were able to account for up to 57% of the variance observed in fatty acid composition. In addition, these markers could be used to calculate a direct genomic breeding values (DGV) for a given fatty acids with an accuracy (measured as simple correlations between DGV and phenotype) ranging from -0.06 to 0.57. Furthermore, 57 1-Mb regions were identified that were associated with at least one fatty acid with a posterior probability of inclusion greater than 0.90. 1-Mb regions on BTA19, BTA26 and BTA29, which harbored fatty acid synthase, Sterol-CoA desaturase and thyroid hormone responsive candidate genes, respectively, explained a high percentage of genetic variance in more than one fatty acid. It was also observed that the correlation between DGV for different fatty acids at a given 1-Mb window ranged from almost 1 to -1.ConclusionsFurther investigations are needed to identify the causal variants harbored within the identified 1-Mb windows. For the first time, Angus breeders have a tool whereby they could select for altered fatty acid composition. Furthermore, these reported results could improve our understanding of the biology of fatty acid metabolism and deposition.

Genetic Factors that Determine the Meat Fatty Acids Composition

“…However, higher estimates have been reported for linolenic acid in other studies (0.21) [39] and also for palmitoleic acid (0.15) [34] and (0.49) [43]. Higher heritability estimates were reported for linoleic FA, 0.34 and 0.58, respectively, in the intramuscular fat of Japanese Black cattle, suggesting that genetic inluence on linoleic acid varies among breeds [40].…”

“…Therefore, genetic progress can be achieved by implementation of whole genome selection to improve faty acid composition in meat. Similarly, Saatchi et al [43] found in other GWAS with 2.177 Angus catle, using a 54-K genotyping panel, 57 genomic regions associated with the faty acids proile trait in meat. The authors concluded that this large number of genomic regions might indicate the presence of an elaborate molecular mechanism that control faty acid content in skeletal muscle.…”

“…In this sense, studying an Angus population, Saatchi et al [43] concluded that genomic selection for beef FA proile using Bayesian models is feasible. Moreover, Onogi et al [68] evaluated the predictive ability of genomic selection in FA composition of Japanese Black catle, using single-step genomic-best linear unbiased method.…”

The effect of breed on fatty acid composition of subcutaneous adipose tissues in fat-tailed sheep under identical feeding conditions

“…The synthesis and metabolism of FAs in the ruminant animal could be affected by genetic and microbial activities in the rumen. Saatchi et al (2013) demonstrated that the heritability of FAs varies with chain length. FAs with a chain length of >18 carbons (with the exception of C24:0) had lower heritabilities (0.06 to 0.24) than FAs with shorter chains (0.08 to 0.57).…”

Alternative polyadenylation and polymorphisms of 3'untranslated regions of bovine BBOX1 gene

“…The bovine BBOX1 locus maps on the chromosome 15, where some QTL affecting meat and carcass traits have been previously described (McClure et al 2012;Saatchi et al 2013;Allais et al 2014;Doran et al 2014). Therefore, we can speculate that it is true that the allele itself may be functional and directly affect the expression of the phenotype, and a more likely event is that the allele is in linkage disequilibrium with another allele at a nearby locus that is the true causal allele.…”