A genome‐wide significant association on chromosome 2 for footrot resistance/susceptibility in Swiss White Alpine sheep

Abstract

Footrot is one of the most important causes of lameness in global sheep populations and is characterized by a bacterial infection of the interdigital skin. As a multifactorial disease, its clinical representation depends not only on pathogen factors and environmental components but also on the individual resistance/susceptibility of the host. A genetic component has been shown in previous studies; however, so far no causative genetic variant influencing the risk of developing footrot has been identified. In this study, we genotyped 373 Swiss White Alpine sheep, using the ovine high-density 600k SNP chip, in order to run a DNA-based comparison of individuals with known clinical footrot status. We performed a case-control genome-wide association study, which revealed a genome-wide significant association for SNP rs418747104 on ovine chromosome 2 at 81.2 Mb. The three best associated SNP markers were located at the MPDZ gene, which codes for the multiple PDZ domain crumbs cell polarity complex component protein, also known as multi-PDZ domain protein 1 (MUPP1). This protein is possibly involved in maintaining the barrier function and integrity of tight junctions. Therefore, we speculate that individuals carrying MPDZ variants may differ in their footrot resistance/susceptibility due to modified horn and interdigital skin integrity. In conclusion, our study reveals that MPDZ might represent a functional candidate gene, and further research is needed to explore its role in footrot affected sheep.

Identifying maintenance hosts for infection with Dichelobacter nodosus in free-ranging wild ruminants in Switzerland: A prevalence study

“…These findings are in line with previous reports documenting that the presence of benign and virulent strains of D. nodosus can be associated with severe foot lesions in Alpine ibex that are comparable to typical lesions of footrot in sheep [1,4]. The classification into benign and virulent strains was developed in the framework of a study conducted in sheep [10,33] and may only be applicable to sheep. The occurrence of severe lesions associated with both groups of strains in ibex but not in other wild and domestic species suggests the existence of a species-specific difference in disease susceptibility, as it occurs for other pathogens such as Mycoplasma conjunctivae in wild (mostly with marked disease signs) vs domestic Caprinae (mostly without or with only mild signs) and Brucella abortus in North American elk (Cervus canadensis) and Bison (Bison bison) (with signs) vs cattle (without signs) [4,[34][35][36].…”

Management Practices Associated With Prevalence of Lameness in Lambs in 2012–2013 in 1,271 English Sheep Flocks

“…Vaccination would reduce the spread of footrot and flocks with >2-5% or >5-10% LiE were less likely to vaccinate ewes with FootVax TM , the commercially available vaccine in the United Kingdom, than those with ≤2% LiE ( Table 5, Supplementary Table 8), suggesting it was at least partly effective. Finally, host genetics (33,34) might have protected flocks sufficiently to reduce the force of infection. Flocks with ≤2% lameness were also not foot trimmed or footbathed, and so feet integrity was protected, and this would have contributed to the low prevalence of lameness ( Table 5).…”

Genomic regions associated withMycoplasma ovipneumoniaepresence in nasal secretions of domestic sheep

“…Technologies have been developed to improve the probability of identifying genomic regions associated with phenotypic traits of interest in sheep. The Ovine SNP50 beadchip [13] and the OvineHD BeadChip (600K) were collaboratively, internationally developed and have been used to identify new markers associated with inherited diseases [14–16], erythrocyte traits [17], parasite infection [18–20], and other infectious disease traits [21–24].…”