Genome-Wide Association Studies for Immunoglobulin Concentrations in Colostrum and Serum in Chinese Holstein

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shan Lin ◽  
Cuncun Ke ◽  
Lin Liu ◽  
Yahui Gao ◽  
Lingna Xu ◽  
...  

Abstract BackgroundThe early death and health problems of calves caused substantial economic losses in dairy industry. As the immune system has not been fully developed in the neonates, transport of passive immune substance such as immunoglobulins (Ig) from mothers to newborn calves is essential in protecting neonates from infections in their early life. Therefore, concentrations of immunoglobulins in the colostrum and serum of dairy cows are critical traits when estimating potential disease resistance of its offspring. ResultsColostrum, blood and hair follicle samples were collected from the 620 Chinese Holstein cows within 24 hours after calving. The concentration of total IgG, IgG1, IgG2, IgA and IgM in both colostrum and serum were detected via ELISA methods. With GCTA software, genome-wide association studies (GWASs) were performed with 88,934 SNPs genotyped by using Illumina 50K (54,609 SNPs) and GeneSeek 150K (140,668 SNPs) chips in which 50K chip were imputed to 150K SNPs with BEAGLE. As a result, 20, 1 and 4 significant SNPs were detected associated with the concentrations of IgG2, IgA and IgM at genome-wide level (P < 3.16E–6); 11, 11, 35, 11 and 10 significant SNPs were identified associated with total IgG, IgG1, IgG2, IgA and IgM at suggestive level (P < 6.32E–5). Such SNPs were located in or proximate to (±1 Mb) 1,083 genes, which were functionally implicated in biological processes and pathways, such as immune response, negative regulation of immunoglobulin secretion, Fc-epsilon receptor and NF-kappaB signaling pathways. By combining the biological functions and the known QTL data for immune traits in bovine, 21 promising candidate functional genes were identified for immunoglobulins concentrations in colostrum and serum in dairy cattle, they were ABR, TIMM22, CRK, MYO1C, RILP, SERPINF2, AKT1, BCL11B, HHIPL1, DYNC1H1, HSP90AA1, TRAF3, KLC1, IL6, PYCARD, ITGAM, TGFB1I1, GUSB, CRCP, RABGEF1 and SBDS.ConclusionsIn this study, we identified 21 candidate genes related to concentrations of immunoglobulins in colostrum and serum in dairy cattle by performing GWASs. Our findings provide a groundwork for unraveling the key genes and causal mutations affecting immunoglobulins levels in colostrum and important information for genetic improvement of such traits in dairy cattle.

BMC Genomics ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shan Lin ◽  
Cuncun Ke ◽  
Lin Liu ◽  
Yahui Gao ◽  
Lingna Xu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The early death and health problems of calves caused substantial economic losses in the dairy industry. As the immune system of neonates has not been fully developed, the absorption of maternal immunoglobulin (Ig) from colostrum is essential in protecting newborn calves against common disease organisms in their early life. The overwhelming majority of Ig in bovine whey is transported from the serum. Therefore, Ig concentration in the colostrum and serum of dairy cows are critical traits when estimating the potential disease resistance of its offspring. Results Colostrum, blood, and hair follicle samples were collected from 588 Chinese Holstein cows within 24 h after calving. The concentration of total IgG, IgG1, IgG2, IgA and IgM in both colostrum and serum were detected via ELISA methods. With GCTA software, genome-wide association studies (GWASs) were performed with 91,620 SNPs genotyped by GeneSeek 150 K (140,668 SNPs) chips. As a result, 1, 5, 1 and 29 significant SNPs were detected associated with the concentrations of colostrum IgG1, IgG2, IgA IgM, and serum IgG2 at the genome-wide level (P < 3.08E–6); 11, 2, 13, 2, 12, 8, 2, 27, 1 and 4 SNPs were found significantly associated with total IgG, IgG1, IgG2, IgA and IgM in colostrum and serum at the suggestive level (P < 6.15E–5). Such SNPs located in or proximate to (±1 Mb) 423 genes, which were functionally implicated in biological processes and pathways, such as immune response, B cell activation, inflammatory response and NF-kappaB signaling pathways. By combining the biological functions and the known QTL data for immune traits in bovine, 14 promising candidate functional genes were identified for immunoglobulin concentrations in colostrum and serum in dairy cattle, they were FGFR4, FGFR2, NCF1, IKBKG, SORBS3, IGHV1S18, KIT, PTGS2, BAX, GRB2, TAOK1, ICAM1, TGFB1 and RAC3. Conclusions In this study, we identified 14 candidate genes related to concentrations of immunoglobulins in colostrum and serum in dairy cattle by performing GWASs. Our findings provide a groundwork for unraveling the key genes and causal mutations affecting immunoglobulin concentrations in colostrum and important information for genetic improvement of such traits in dairy cattle.


Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 2259
Author(s):  
Ismail Mohamed Abdalla ◽  
Xubin Lu ◽  
Mudasir Nazar ◽  
Abdelaziz Adam Idriss Arbab ◽  
Tianle Xu ◽  
...  

Feet and leg conformation traits are considered one of the most important economical traits in dairy cattle and have a great impact on the profitability of milk production. Therefore, identifying the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), genes and pathways analysis associated with these traits might contribute to the genomic selection and long-term plan selection for dairy cattle. We conducted genome-wide association studies (GWASs) using the fixed and random model circulating probability unification (FarmCPU) method to identify SNPs associated with bone quality, heel depth, rear leg side view and rear leg rear view of Chinese Holstein cows. Phenotypic measurements were collected from 1000 individuals of Chinese Holstein cattle and the GeneSeek Genomic Profiler Bovine 100 K SNP chip was utilized for individual genotyping. After quality control, 984 individual cows and 84,906 SNPs remained for GWAS work; as a result, we identified 20 significant SNPs after Bonferroni correction. Several candidate genes were identified within distances of 200 kb upstream or downstream to the significant SNPs, including ADIPOR2, INPP4A, DNMT3A, ALDH1A2, PCDH7, XKR4 and CADPS. Further bioinformatics analyses showed 34 gene ontology terms and two signaling pathways were significantly enriched (p ≤ 0.05). Many terms and pathways are related to biological quality, metabolism and development processes; these identified SNPs and genes could provide useful information about the genetic architecture of feet and leg traits, thus improving the longevity and productivity of Chinese Holstein dairy cattle.


Genes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoming Ma ◽  
Congjun Jia ◽  
Donghai Fu ◽  
Min Chu ◽  
Xuezhi Ding ◽  
...  

Yak (Bos grunniens) is an important domestic animal living in high-altitude plateaus. Due to inadequate disease prevention, each year, the yak industry suffers significant economic losses. The identification of causal genes that affect blood- and immunity-related cells could provide preliminary reference guidelines for the prevention of diseases in the population of yaks. The genome-wide association studies (GWASs) utilizing a single-marker or haplotype method were employed to analyze 15 hematological traits in the genome of 315 unrelated yaks. Single-marker GWASs identified a total of 43 significant SNPs, including 35 suggestive and eight genome-wide significant SNPs, associated with nine traits. Haplotype analysis detected nine significant haplotype blocks, including two genome-wide and seven suggestive blocks, associated with seven traits. The study provides data on the genetic variability of hematological traits in the yak. Five essential genes (GPLD1, EDNRA, APOB, HIST1H1E, and HIST1H2BI) were identified, which affect the HCT, HGB, RBC, PDW, PLT, and RDWSD traits and can serve as candidate genes for regulating hematological traits. The results provide a valuable reference to be used in the analysis of blood properties and immune diseases in the yak.


Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 2211
Author(s):  
Shan Lin ◽  
Zihui Wan ◽  
Junnan Zhang ◽  
Lingna Xu ◽  
Bo Han ◽  
...  

Albumin can be of particular benefit in fighting infections for newborn calves due to its anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative stress properties. To identify the candidate genes related to the concentration of albumin in colostrum and serum, we collected the colostrum and blood samples from 572 Chinese Holstein cows within 24 h after calving and measured the concentration of albumin in the colostrum and serum using the ELISA methods. The cows were genotyped with GeneSeek 150 K chips (containing 140,668 single nucleotide polymorphisms; SNPs). After quality control, we performed GWASs via GCTA software with 91,620 SNPs and 563 cows. Consequently, 9 and 7 genome-wide significant SNPs (false discovery rate (FDR) at 1%) were identified. Correspondingly, 42 and 206 functional genes that contained or were approximate to (±1 Mbp) the significant SNPs were acquired. Integrating the biological process of these genes and the reported QTLs for immune and inflammation traits in cattle, 3 and 12 genes were identified as candidates for the concentration of colostrum and serum albumin, respectively; these are RUNX1, CBR1, OTULIN,CDK6, SHARPIN, CYC1, EXOSC4, PARP10, NRBP2, GFUS, PYCR3, EEF1D, GSDMD, PYCR2 and CXCL12. Our findings provide important information for revealing the genetic mechanism behind albumin concentration and for molecular breeding of disease-resistance traits in dairy cattle.


BMC Genetics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Clemens Falker-Gieske ◽  
Hanna Iffland ◽  
Siegfried Preuß ◽  
Werner Bessei ◽  
Cord Drögemüller ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Feather pecking (FP) is damaging behavior in laying hens leading to global economic losses in the layer industry and massive impairments of animal welfare. The objective of the study was to discover genetic variants and affected genes that lead to FP behavior. To achieve that we imputed low-density genotypes from two different populations of layers divergently selected for FP to sequence level by performing whole genome sequencing on founder and half-sib individuals. In order to decipher the genetic structure of FP, genome wide association studies and meta-analyses of two resource populations were carried out by focusing on the traits ‘feather pecks delivered’ (FPD) and the ‘posterior probability of a hen to belong to the extreme feather pecking subgroup’ (pEFP). Results In this meta-analysis, we discovered numerous genes that are affected by polymorphisms significantly associated with the trait FPD. Among them SPATS2L, ZEB2, KCHN8, and MRPL13 which have been previously connected to psychiatric disorders with the latter two being responsive to nicotine treatment. Gene set enrichment analysis revealed that phosphatidylinositol signaling is affected by genes identified in the GWAS and that the Golgi apparatus as well as brain structure may be involved in the development of a FP phenotype. Further, we were able to validate a previously discovered QTL for the trait pEFP on GGA1, which contains variants affecting NIPA1, KIAA1211L, AFF3, and TSGA10. Conclusions We provide evidence for the involvement of numerous genes in the propensity to exhibit FP behavior that could aid in the selection against this unwanted trait. Furthermore, we identified variants that are involved in phosphatidylinositol signaling, Golgi metabolism and cell structure and therefore propose changes in brain structure to be an influential factor in FP, as already described in human neuropsychiatric disorders.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Pitchers ◽  
Jessica Nye ◽  
Eladio J. Márquez ◽  
Alycia Kowalski ◽  
Ian Dworkin ◽  
...  

AbstractDue to the complexity of genotype-phenotype relationships, simultaneous analyses of genomic associations with multiple traits will be more powerful and more informative than a series of univariate analyses. In most cases, however, studies of genotype-phenotype relationships have analyzed only one trait at a time, even as the rapid advances in molecular tools have expanded our view of the genotype to include whole genomes. Here, we report the results of a fully integrated multivariate genome-wide association analysis of the shape of the Drosophila melanogaster wing in the Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel. Genotypic effects on wing shape were highly correlated between two different labs. We found 2,396 significant SNPs using a 5% FDR cutoff in the multivariate analyses, but just 4 significant SNPs in univariate analyses of scores on the first 20 principal component axes. A key advantage of multivariate analysis is that the direction of the estimated phenotypic effect is much more informative than a univariate one. Exploiting this feature, we show that the directions of effects were on average replicable in an unrelated panel of inbred lines. Effects of knockdowns of genes implicated in the initial screen were on average more similar than expected under a null model. Association studies that take a phenomic approach in considering many traits simultaneously are an important complement to the power of genomics. Multivariate analyses of such data are more powerful, more informative, and allow the unbiased study of pleiotropy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabricio Almeida-Silva ◽  
Thiago M. Venancio

AbstractSoybean is one of the most important legume crops worldwide. However, soybean yield is dramatically affected by fungal diseases, leading to economic losses of billions of dollars yearly. Here, we integrated publicly available genome-wide association studies and transcriptomic data to prioritize candidate genes associated with resistance to Cadophora gregata, Fusarium graminearum, Fusarium virguliforme, Macrophomina phaseolina, and Phakopsora pachyrhizi. We identified 188, 56, 11, 8, and 3 high-confidence candidates for resistance to F. virguliforme, F. graminearum, C. gregata, M. phaseolina and P. pachyrhizi, respectively. The prioritized candidate genes are highly conserved in the pangenome of cultivated soybeans and are heavily biased towards fungal species-specific defense responses. The vast majority of the prioritized candidate resistance genes are related to plant immunity processes, such as recognition, signaling, oxidative stress, systemic acquired resistance, and physical defense. Based on the number of resistance alleles, we selected the five most resistant accessions against each fungal species in the soybean USDA germplasm. Interestingly, the most resistant accessions do not reach the maximum theoretical resistance potential. Hence, they can be further improved to increase resistance in breeding programs or through genetic engineering. Finally, the coexpression network generated here is available in a user-friendly web application (https://soyfungigcn.venanciogroup.uenf.br/) and an R/Shiny package (https://github.com/almeidasilvaf/SoyFungiGCN) that serve as a public resource to explore soybean-pathogenic fungi interactions at the transcriptional level.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shan Lin ◽  
Cuncun Ke ◽  
Lin Liu ◽  
Yahui Gao ◽  
Lingna Xu ◽  
...  

Abstract BackgroundImmunoglobulins (Igs) are important components of the innate immune system, and fight pathogens as a part of the first defense line. Newborn dairy calves get maternal antibodies from colostrum. Therefore, contents of immunoglobulins in colostrum and serum of cows are essential traits when estimating potential natural disease resistance of calves. In this study, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) was performed to identify candidate genes that are responsible for the observed genetic variation of immunoglobulins contents in colostrum and blood in Holstein cows.ResultsColostrum, blood and hair follicle samples were collected from the 620 Chinese Holstein cows within 24 hours after calving. The concentration of IgG, IgG1, IgG2, IgA and IgM in both colostrum and serum were detected via ELISA methods, respectively. Using GCTA software, GWASs were performed with 88,934 SNPs genotyped by using Illumina 50K (54,609 SNPs) and GeneSeek 150K (140,668 SNPs) chips in which 50K chip were imputed to 150K SNPs with BEAGLE 3.0.4 software. As a result, 20 and 5 SNPs were detected genome-wide significantly associated with contents of the IgG and IgM in colostrum and serum (P<3.16E–6). In addition, 57, 11 and 10 SNPs were suggestive significantly associated with IgG, IgA and IgM traits (P<6.32E–5). Next, a total of 1,083 functional genes were identified that included or adjacent to these significant SNPs with a distance less than 1 Mb. Functional enrichment analysis showed that these genes were involved in immune related pathways, such as immune response, Fc gamma R-mediated phagocytosis, negative regulation of immunoglobulin secretion, humoral immune response, Fc-epsilon receptor and NF-kappaB signaling pathways. By integrating analysis of the functional enrichment and the known QTL data, we identified 21 candidate genes associated with contents of immunoglobulins in colostrum and serum, including ABR, TIMM22, CRK, MYO1C, RILP, SERPINF2, AKT1, BCL11B, HHIPL1, DYNC1H1, HSP90AA1, TRAF3, KLC1, IL6, PYCARD, ITGAM, TGFB1I1, GUSB, CRCP, RABGEF1 and SBDS.ConclusionsIn this study, we identified 21 candidate genes associated with immunoglobulins level in colostrum and serum in dairy cattle. This founding demonstrated the possibility of increasing immunity through selective breeding and provided an important information for molecular breeding of dairy cattle.


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