Genome-wide screening for SNPs associated with stature in diverse cattle breeds

Cattle breeds used in industrial production tend to have larger size compared to the local cattle, as the increased dairy and beef productivity is closely related to the stature. The aim of our work was to identify SNPs, which are significantly associated with stature in diverse cattle breeds. Thirteen local and transboundary cattle breeds (n = 670) subjected to our study were divided in two groups according to the stature. Domestic Animal Diversity Information System (DAD-IS) [http://www.fao.org/dad-is/en] maintained and developed by FAO was used to obtain the mean values for height at withers for studied breeds. The high-stature group included Angus, Ayrshire, Black-and-White, Holstein, Kholmogor, Yaroslavl, Tagil and Istoben breeds. The low-stature group comprised of Jersey, Kalmyk, Kyrgyz, Mongolian and Yakut cattle. The average height at withers was 136.3±1.6 and 121.6±2.8 cm in the high- and low-stature groups, respectively. The samples of 11 breeds were genotyped using high-density DNA arrays (Illumina Inc., USA). The genotypes of two remaining breeds were downloaded from the publicly available WIDDE database [http://widde.toulouse.inra.fr/wide]. Genome-wide association studies revealed four SNPs, which were strongly associated with the stature, including three SNPs at 77.3-77.8 cM on BTA4 (map53144-ss46525999, p<7.747*10^-101; BovineHD0400021479, p<1.173*10^-91; ARS-BFGL-NGS-116590, p<7.665*10^-105) and one SNPs at 25.2 cM on BTA14 (BovineHD1400007259, p<1.324*10^-109). Functional annotation showed the localization within identified regions of genes, which are responsible for growth, exterior characteristics, protein and lipid metabolism, and feed intake. Identified SNPs can be considered as useful DNA markers for marker-assistant cattle breeding aimed at increased stature. The study was funded by the RSF No. 21-66-00007 and the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education No. 0445-2019-0024.