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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 #343743
Title: Diversity of copy number variation in a worldwide population of sheep

Author
item YANG, LIU - Sichuan Agricultural University
item XU, LINGYANG - Chinese Academy Of Agricultural Sciences
item ZHOU, YANG - Northwest Agricultural & Forestry University
item LIU, MEI - Northwest Agricultural & Forestry University
item WANG, LEI - Chinese Academy Of Agricultural Sciences
item KIJAS, JAMES - Collaborator
item ZHANG, HONGPING - Sichuan Agricultural University
item LI, LI - Sichuan Agricultural University
item Liu, Ge - George

Submitted to: Genomics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/11/2017
Publication Date: 9/14/2017
Citation: Yang, L., Xu, L., Zhou, Y., Liu, M., Wang, L., Kijas, J.W., Zhang, H., Li, L., Liu, G. 2017. Diversity of copy number variation in a worldwide population of sheep. Genomics. 110(3):143-148. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ygeno.2017.09.005.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ygeno.2017.09.005

Interpretive Summary: Copy number variation (CNV) represents a major source of genomic variation. Using SNP array data collected from a large collection of sheep, we systematically studied CNV distribution across sheep breeeds. These results fill our knowledge gaps and provide the foundation for future studies of CNV role in genome evolution and selection. Farmers, scientist, and policy planners who need improve animal health and production based on genome-enable animal selection will benefit from this study.

Technical Abstract: Copy number variation (CNV) represents a major source of genomic variation. We investigated the diversity of CNV distribution using SNP array data collected from a comprehensive collection of geographically dispersed sheep breeds. We identified 24,558 putative CNVs, which can be merged into 619 CNV regions, spanning 197 Mb of total length and corresponding to ~6.9% the sheep genome. Our results reveal a population differentiation in CNV between different geographical areas, including Africa, America, Asia, Southwest Asia, Central Europe, Northern Europe and Southwest Europe. We observed clear distinctions in CNV prevalence between diverse groups, possibly reflecting the population history of different sheep breeds. We sought to determine the gene content of CNV, and found several important CNV-overlapping genes (BTG3, PTGS1 and PSPH) which were involved in fetal muscle development, prostaglandin (PG) synthetic, and bone color. Our study generates a comprehensive CNV map, which may contribute to genome annotation in sheep.