Polledness in Argentinean Creole cattle, five centuries surviving

FALOMIR LOCKHART A.H.; ORTEGA MASAGUE M.F.; RUDD GARCES G.; ZAPPA M.E.; PERAL GARCIA G.; MORALES DURAND H.F.; HOLGADO F.D.; ROGBERG MUÑOZ A.; GIOVAMBATTISTA G.

ANIMAL GENETICS

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2019

0268-9146

Polledness has been shown to have autosomal Mendelian inheritance, with the polled locus being dominant to the horned locus. This trait was mapped to the BTA1 centromeric end in several breeds. One of the distinctive attributes of Creole cattle, such as the Argentinean Creole, is the presence of long, lyre-shaped horns. However, polled native animals were reported before the introduction of modern selected European breeds. Here, we studied the origin of the polled mutation, either independent or introgressed, in a Creole line from the Creole cattle founder group at the IIACS-INTA Leales Experimental Station (Northwest, Argentina). The study sample (65 animals, 26 horned and 39 polled) was genotyped using high-density SNP microarrays and three already reported genetic markers (IFNGR2-intron 3 SNP, P202ID and P80kbID). Genome-wide association study, selection signatures, linkage disequilibrium analysis and copy number variation were used to detect the responsible region and the segregating haplotypes/alleles. The interval mapped in the Leales herd (1.23-2.13 Mb) overlapped with the region previously reported in several European cattle breeds, suggesting that the same locus could be segregating in this population. The previously reported mutations PF and SNP IFNGR2-intron 3 were not detected, thus dismissing the Holstein-Friesian origin of the polled phenotype in this native breed. Conversely, the presence of the Celtic mutation PC suggests an almost complete co-segregation. The cluster analysis rejected the hypothesis of recent introgression, which is compatible with the historical record of polled Creole cattle in the northwest of Argentina.