Estimation of Linkage Disequilibrium, Effective Population Size, and Genetic Parameters of Phenotypic Traits in Dabieshan Cattle

• Published in: Genes Vol. 14; no. 1; p. 107
• Main Authors: Jin, Hai, Zhao, Shuanping, Jia, Yutang, Xu, Lei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 29-12-2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Animals; Body measurements; Cattle; Cattle - genetics; Evolution & development; Feeds; Gene frequency; Genetic diversity; Genetic markers; Genetic structure; Genome; Genomes; Genomics; Genotype; Genotype & phenotype; Genotypes; Heritability; Inbreeding; Linkage Disequilibrium; Phenotype; Population; Population Density; Population genetics; Quality control; Single-nucleotide polymorphism; China; effective population size; Dabieshan cattle; heritability; linkage disequilibrium
• ISSN: 2073-4425; 2073-4425
• DOI: 10.3390/genes14010107

Dabieshan cattle (DBSC) are a valuable genetic resource for indigenous cattle breeds in China. It is a small to medium-sized breed with slower growth, but with good meat quality and fat deposition. Genetic markers could be used for the estimation of population genetic structure and genetic parameters. In this work, we genotyped the DBSC breeding population (
= 235) with the GeneSeek Genomic Profiler (GGP) 100 k density genomic chip. Genotype data of 222 individuals and 81,579 SNPs were retained after quality control. The average minor allele frequency (MAF) was 0.20 and the average linkage disequilibrium (LD) level (r
) was 0.67 at a distance of 0-50 Kb. The estimated relationship coefficient and effective population size (Ne) were 0.023 and 86 for the current generation. In addition, we used genotype data to estimate the genetic parameters of the population's phenotypic traits. Among them, height at hip cross (HHC) and shin circumference (SC) were rather high heritability traits, with heritability of 0.41 and 0.54, respectively. The results reflected the current cattle population's extent of inbreeding and history. Through the principal breeding parameters, genomic breeding would significantly improve the genetic progress of breeding.