Autosomal recessive loci contribute significantly to quantitative variation of male fertility in a dairy cattle population.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Cattle are ideally suited to investigate the genetics of male fertility. Semen from individual bulls is used for thousands of artificial inseminations for which the fertilization success is monitored. Results from the breeding soundness examination and repeated observations of semen quality complement the fertility evaluation for each bull.

Results

In a cohort of 3881 Brown Swiss bulls that had genotypes at 683,609 SNPs, we reveal four novel recessive QTL for male fertility on BTA1, 18, 25, and 26 using haplotype-based association testing. A QTL for bull fertility on BTA1 is also associated with sperm head shape anomalies. All other QTL are not associated with any of the semen quality traits investigated. We perform complementary fine-mapping approaches using publ

SUBMITTER: Hiltpold M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8010996 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature