Identification of differential selection traces in two P olish cattle breeds

• Published in: Animal science journal Vol. 86; no. 1; pp. 17 - 24
• Main Authors: Gurgul, Artur, Pawlina, Klaudia, Frys‐Żurek, Monika, Bugno‐Poniewierska, Monika
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01-01-2015
• ISSN: 1344-3941; 1740-0929
• DOI: 10.1111/asj.12242

Genetic improvement of animals based on artificial selection is leading to changes in the frequency of genes related to desirable production traits. The changes are reflected by the neutral, intergenic single nucleotide polymorphims (
SNPs
) being in long‐range linkage disequilibrium with functional polymorphisms. Genome‐wide
SNP
analysis tools designed for cattle, allow for scanning divergences in allelic frequencies between distinct breeds and thus for identification of genomic regions which were divergently selected in breeds' histories. In this study, by using
B
ovine
SNP50
assay, we attempted to identify genomic regions showing the highest differences in allele frequencies between two distinct cattle breeds – preserved, unselected
P
olish
R
ed breed and highly selected
H
olstein cattle. Our study revealed 19 genomic regions encompassing 55 protein‐coding genes and numerous quantitative trait loci which potentially may underlie some of the phenotypic traits distinguishing the breeds.