Genome-wide genotyping uncovers genetic profiles and history of the Russian cattle breeds

Abstract

One of the most economically important areas within the Russian agricultural sector is dairy and beef cattle farming contributing about $11 billion to the Russian economy annually. Trade connections, selection and breeding have resulted in the establishment of a number of breeds that are presumably adapted to local climatic conditions. Little however is known about the ancestry and history of Russian native cattle. To address this question, we genotyped 274 individuals from 18 breeds bred in Russia and compared them to 135 additional breeds from around the world that had been genotyped previously. Our results suggest a shared ancestry between most of the Russian cattle and European taurine breeds, apart from a few breeds that shared ancestry with the Asian taurines. The Yakut cattle, belonging to the latter group, was found to be the most diverged breed in the whole combined dataset according to structure results. Haplotype sharing further suggests that the Russian cattle can be divided into four major clusters reflecting ancestral relations with other breeds. Herein, we therefore shed light on to the history of Russian cattle and identified closely related breeds to those from Russia. Our results will facilitate future research on detecting signatures of selection in cattle genomes and eventually inform future genetics-assisted livestock breeding programs in Russia and in other countries.

Whole blood transcriptome analysis reveals footprints of cattle adaptation to sub-arctic conditions

“…In addition, Holstein cattle do not face a shortage of fodder and are maintained inside the barn, whereas Yakutian cattle may suffer from food shortages and are partly outside during the winter. The significant differences between Yakutian cattle and Holstein cattle are in line with earlier reports (Decker et al, 2016; Yurchenko et al, 2018; Zinovieva et al, 2016). Out of 1,418 genes that were significantly differentially expressed between the two breeds, 594 genes were upregulated in Yakutian cattle.…”

Across-breed genomic prediction for body weight in Siberian cattle populations

“…Details of the published dataset can be found in [21]. [22] showed the genomic relationship between Kazakh and Hereford breeds. However, there are certain drawbacks associated with the use of admixed populations in GWAS.…”

Whole genome studies of origin, selection and adaptation of the Russian cattle breeds

“…Целью нашего недавнего исследования было проанализировать в контексте мировых пород популяции крупного рогатого скота из России и породы из ближнего зарубежья, разводимые в России (Yurchenko et al, 2018). Мы использовали ДНК-чипы GGP HD150K и Illumina Bovine 50K для генотипирования животных 18 пород, разводимых в России, отобранных на основе вероятного исторического вклада местных популяций скота в их современные геномы.…”

“…Существует гипотеза, основанная на генетическом и морфологическом отличии турано-монгольских пород от пород, распространенных в Европе, что они произошли в результате независимой доместикации популяции тура, по всей вероятности, в Северном Китае, а потом уже распространились по Азиатскому континенту (Zhang et al, 2013). Полученные нами данные подтвердили общность происхождения якутской, бурятской пород, вагу и ханву (Yurchenko et al, 2018). Исходя из этого, был проведен поиск следов отбора в геномах этой группы пород и у каждой из них в отдельности.…”

“…Phylogenetic tree of the genetic diversity of Russian and non-Russian cattle breeds built using the neighbour-joining approach(Yurchenko et al, 2018).Asian breeds are shown in yellow; African, in green; American, in blue; European, in beige; Russian, in red. Names of the Russian breeds and their sister breeds are indicated.…”