Abstract
Feed-efficient cattle selection is among the most leading solutions to reduce cost for beef cattle production. However, technical difficulties in measuring feed efficiency traits had limited the application in livestock. Here, we performed a Bivariate Genome-Wide Association Study (Bi-GWAS) and presented candidate biological mechanisms underlying the association between feed efficiency and meat quality traits in a half-sibling design with 353 Nelore steers derived from 34 unrelated sires. A total of 13 Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) were found explaining part of the phenotypic variations. An important transcription factor of adipogenesis in cattle, the TAL1 (rs133408775) gene located on BTA3 was associated with intramuscular fat and average daily gain (IMF-ADG), and a region located on BTA20, close to CD180 and MAST4 genes, both related to fat accumulation. We observed a low positive genetic correlation between IMF-ADG (r = 0.30 ± 0.0686), indicating that it may respond to selection in the same direction. Our findings contributed to clarifying the pleiotropic modulation of the complex traits, indicating new QTLs for bovine genetic improvement.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and analysed during this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank FAPESP (2012/23638-8) for financial support, and Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education – CAPES (Financing support code 001). We thank all the Staff of Embrapa Pecuária Sudeste responsible for monitoring and taking care of animals.
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This work was financially supported by FAPESP (2012/23638–8), Brazil.
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CEB, GBM, JBW, LLC and LCAR: designed the experiments and analysis. CEB: performed the experiments and analysis. JBW, JP and GBM: statistical analyzes support. ECGB, JP and GAR: bioinformatics technical support. CEB, JA, PSNO, JP, PCT, ASMC, ECGB, TFC, WJSD, AOL, MIPR and BGNA: interpreted the results. CEB and LCAR: drafted the manuscripts. All authors have reviewed the paper.
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Buss, C.E., Afonso, J., de Oliveira, P.S.N. et al. Bivariate GWAS reveals pleiotropic regions among feed efficiency and beef quality-related traits in Nelore cattle. Mamm Genome 34, 90–103 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00335-022-09969-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00335-022-09969-6