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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 #385911
Research Project: Enhancing Genetic Merit of Ruminants Through Improved Genome Assembly, Annotation, and Selection

Location: Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory

Title: Insights from initial variant detection by sequencing single sperm in cattle

Author
item YANG, LIU - Sichuan Agricultural University
item GAO, YAHUI - University Of Maryland
item Boschiero, Clarissa
item LI, LI - Sichuan Agricultural University
item ZHANG, HONGPING - Sichuan Agricultural University
item MA, LI - University Of Maryland
item Liu, Ge - George

Submitted to: Dairy Journal
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/18/2021
Publication Date: 11/15/2021
Citation: Yang, L., Gao, Y., Boschiero, C., Li, L., Zhang, H., Ma, L., Liu, G. 2021. Insights from initial variant detection by sequencing single sperm in cattle. Dairy. 2(4):649-657. https://doi.org/10.3390/dairy2040050.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/dairy2040050

Interpretive Summary: Single-cell analyses will benefit our understanding of biology. We sequenced 143 single sperms and estimated de novo mutation rates using them. These results fill our knowledge gaps and provide the foundation for incorporating new knowledge into the future animal breeding program. Farmers, scientist, and policy planners who need improve animal health and production based on genome-enabled animal selection will benefit from this study.

Technical Abstract: Meiotic de novo mutation (DNM) is one of the important phenomena contributing to gamete genome diversity. However, except for humans and a few model organisms, they are not well studied in livestock including cattle. We sequenced 143 single sperms from two Holstein bulls and identified hundreds of candidate DNM events in ten sperms with deep sequencing coverage. We estimated DNM rates ranging from 1.08×10-8 to 3.78×10-8 per nucleotide per generation. To our knowledge, this is the first single sperm whole-genome sequencing effort in livestock, which provided useful information for future studies of point mutations and male infertility.