Identifying pleiotropic variants and candidate genes for fertility and reproduction traits in Holstein cattle via association studies based on imputed whole-genome sequence genotypes.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Genetic progress for fertility and reproduction traits in dairy cattle has been limited due to the low heritability of most indicator traits. Moreover, most of the quantitative trait loci (QTL) and candidate genes associated with these traits remain unknown. In this study, we used 5.6 million imputed DNA sequence variants (single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs) for genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of 18 fertility and reproduction traits in Holstein cattle. Aiming to identify pleiotropic variants and increase detection power, multiple-trait analyses were performed using a method to efficiently combine the estimated SNP effects of single-trait GWAS based on a chi-square statistic.

Results

There were 87, 72, and 84 significant SNPs identified for heifer, cow, a

SUBMITTER: Chen SY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9052698 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature