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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #323499
Title: Effect of sex, age, and breed on genetic recombination features in cattle

Author
item SHEN, BOTONG - University Of Maryland
item WANG, ZHYIYING - University Of Maryland
item JIANG, JICAI - University Of Maryland
item Cole, John
item Bickhart, Derek
item Wiggans, George
item Liu, Ge - George
item MA, LI - University Of Maryland

Submitted to: Plant and Animal Genome Conference Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/8/2016
Publication Date: 1/8/2016
Citation: Shen, B., Wang, Z., Jiang, J., Cole, J.B., Bickhart, D.M., Wiggans, G.R., Liu, G., Ma, L. 2016. Effect of sex, age, and breed on genetic recombination features in cattle. Plant and Animal Genome Conference Proceedings. San Diego, CA, Jan. 9–13, P0522.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Meiotic recombination is a fundamental biological process which generates genetic diversity, affects fertility, and influences evolvability. Here we investigate the roles of sex, age, and breed in cattle recombination features, including recombination rate, location and crossover interference. Using genotype data from 1,357,628 three-generation families of dairy cattle in four breeds, we measured recombination rates between SNP pairs based on over 22.4 and 7.7 million identified paternal and maternal recombination events, respectively. Our analysis reveals a number of sex, age, and breed differences in the total number and distribution of recombination events. Using recombination features as phenotype, we also performed GWAS and identified several associated SNPs in multiple cattle breeds. By using the Housworth–Stahl interference escape model, we estimated the strength of crossover interference in Holstein cows and bulls. Our results show that the levels of both cross-over interference and interference escape are higher in females than in males. In addition, we find that both of the estimates of interference and escape parameters vary considerably across the 29 autosomes. After dividing the data into groups based on maternal age, we observed a peak for both interference and escape parameters at 9 years of age in cows. Collectively, this large-scale analysis of cattle meiotic recombination provides useful insights into the variation in recombination due to sex, age and breed differences.