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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 #353894
Research Project: Enhancing Genetic Merit of Ruminants Through Improved Genome Assembly, Annotation, and Selection

Location: Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory

Title: Characterization of recombination features and the genetic basis in multiple cattle breeds

Author
item SHEN, BOTONG - University Of Maryland
item JIANG, JICAI - University Of Maryland
item SEROUSSI, EYAL - Collaborator
item Liu, Ge - George
item MA, LI - University Of Maryland

Submitted to: BMC Genomics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/22/2018
Publication Date: 4/27/2018
Citation: Shen, B., Jiang, J., Seroussi, E., Liu, G., Ma, L. 2018. Characterization of recombination features and the genetic basis in multiple cattle breeds. Biomed Central (BMC) Genomics. 19(1):304. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-018-4705-y.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-018-4705-y

Interpretive Summary: Recombination during meiosis is facilitated by chromosomal crossover. Using large-scale analysis of pedigree data, we systematically stuided recombination in four cattle breeds, including Holstein, Jersey, Ayrshire and Brown Swiss. These results fill our knowledge gaps and provide the foundation for future studies of recombination's functional 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: Background: Crossover generated by meiotic recombination is a fundamental event which facilitates meiosis and sexual reproduction. Comparative studies have shown wide variation in recombination between species, but the characterization of recombination between bovine breeds remains elusive. Cattle populations in North America count millions, and the dairy industry has genotyped millions of individuals with pedigree information, providing a unique opportunity to study breed-level variations in recombination. Results: Based on large pedigrees of Holstein, Jersey, Ayrshire and Brown Swiss cattle with genotype information, we identified over 8.9 million maternal and paternal crossover events within 446,373 three-generation families. We constructed eight genome-wide recombination maps for the two sexes in four cattle breeds. By examining the recombination patterns of different cattle breeds, we confirmed that male recombination map is 10% longer than the female map in all four breeds. When comparing recombination hotpot regions from four breeds, we found that 20% of the hotspots were shared between breeds with each breed exhibiting many breed-specific hotspots. Finally, our breed and sex-specific GWAS analyses confirmed previously reported seven loci that were associated with genome-wide recombination rate and the association of the PRDM9 gene with hotspot usage in both sexes and multiple cattle breeds. Conclusions: Collectively, our results provided a comprehensive characterization of the meiotic recombination pattern in four cattle breeds and expanded our understanding of the breed differences in recombination within a mammalian species.