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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 #302616

Title: Effects of quantitative trait loci on mineral content 1 of bovine longissimus dorsi muscle

Author
item TIZIOTO, POLYANA - Federal University - Brazil
item TAYLOR, JERRY - University Of Missouri
item DECKER, JARED - University Of Missouri
item GROMBONI, CAIO - Bahia State University
item MUDADU, MAURICIO - Embrapa
item SCHNABEL, ROBERT - University Of Missouri
item COUTINHO, LUIZ - Universidad De Sao Paulo
item MOURAO, GERSON - Universidad De Sao Paulo
item NASSU, RENATA - Embrapa
item DONATONI, FLAVIA - Embrapa
item THOLON, PATRICIA - Embrapa
item Sonstegard, Tad
item ALENCAR, MAURICIO - Embrapa
item TULLIO, RYMER - Embrapa
item REECY, J.M. - Iowa State University
item NOGUEIRA, ANA - Embrapa
item REGITANO, LUCIANA - Embrapa

Submitted to: Genetic Selection Evolution
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/12/2014
Publication Date: 3/11/2015
Citation: Tizioto, P.C., Taylor, J.F., Decker, J.E., Gromboni, C.F., Mudadu, M.A., Schnabel, R.D., Coutinho, L.L., Mourao, G.B., Nassu, R.T., Donatoni, F.A., Tholon, P., Sonstegard, T.S., Alencar, M.M., Tullio, R.R., Reecy, J., Nogueira, A.R., Regitano, L.C. 2015. Effects of quantitative trait loci on mineral content 1 of bovine longissimus dorsi muscle. Genetic Selection Evolution. 47(1):15.

Interpretive Summary: It is possible to analyze high density DNA marker (single nucleotide polymorphism or SNP-based data) to find regions of the genome that affect mineral concentration in meat. This study is the first high density (700,000 single nucleotide polymorphism markers) scan of a Bos indicus cattle from Brazil for mineal content. As expected, there are many genes of small effect that determine mineral content of meat. However, there was one relatively large effect on mineral content idenitified that explains 6% of the variation across animals. Development of molecular breeding criteria based on our results should help producers improve consistency of mineral content in Nelore-derived meat products, which can translate into production of more nutritious meat for human consumption.

Technical Abstract: Beef cattle require dietary minerals to maintain their health, production and reproduction. Concentrations of minerals in tissues are at least partially genetically determined. Mapping genomic regions related to the mineral content of the bovine longissimus dorsi muscle may help in the identification of genes which underlie variation in mineral balance, transportation, absorption and excretion and therefore which may also be related to metabolic disease. Adopting a genome-wide association strategy, we genotyped 373 Nelore steers from 34 half-sib families with the Illumina BovineHD BeadChip. Genome-wide association analysis was performed for mineral content of longissimus dorsi muscle using a Bayesian approach 34 implemented in the GenSel software. The muscle mineral content of Bos indicus cattle is moderately heritable with heritability of traits ranging from 0.29 - 0.36. Variation in mineral content appears to be influenced by numerous small-effect QTL, however, a large-effect QTL which explained 6.53% of the phenotypic variance in iron amount. The candidate gene lists generated for all detected mineral content QTL indicates that most of the genes that underlie these QTL are related to signal transduction, signaling pathway, integral to membrane, intrinsic to membrane, regulation of transcription and metal ion binding. This study identifies QTL and candidate genes related to variation in mineral content in skeletal muscle. Our findings provide the first step towards the implementation of genomic selection for these traits in Nelore beef cattle, however validation in other Bos indicus populations will be required to estimate the accuracy of molecular estimates of breeding values and validate the proportions of variation in mineral content that can be explained by DNA markers.