Analysis of signatures of selection in Brangus cattle

ALVAREZ CECCO, P; FERNANDEZ ME; ROGBERG MUÑOZ A; BALBI, M; BONAMY, M; GIOVAMBATTISTA G

Mendoza

Congreso; XVII Congreso Latinoamericano de Genética; 2019

Asociación Latinoamericana de Genética

Brangus breed combines the superior characteristics of both of its founder breeds, Angus and Brahman: high adaptability to subtropical environments, disease resistance, and overall hardiness of zebuine and the reproductive potential and carcass quality of Angus. The development of this breed could have produced an enrichment of zebuine or taurine haplotypes within specific genomic regions as a result of selection. The aim of this study was to identify signatures of selection in the genome of Brangus cattle through a population differentiation method (FST). For this purpose, a total of 479 animals (94 Angus, 48 Zebuine and 337 Brangus) were genotyped using a 50K microarray. Raw data quality control was performed considering call rate (⩾97%) by sample and by SNP. PCA analysis revealed group clustering according to the breeds´ genetic composition. The genetic differentiation of Brangus was calculated using Weir and Cockerham´s FST against both ancestral breeds using Plink v1.9. The upper 1% of the distribution was arbitrarily chosen as threshold to determine candidate regions for selective footprints. The FST estimations between Brangus and each parental breed resulted in one notable candidate region for each comparison: BTA5 for Angus and BTA1 for Brahman. A 20 kb window for each SNP was considered to retrieve genes with BioMart and BovineMine databases. Then PANTHER was used to classify, according to their biological functions, those genes. The selected genomic regions seem to be related to subtropical environments adaptation as well as meat quality characteristics, among others.