Premium
Identification of genetic associations of ECHS 1 gene with milk fatty acid traits in dairy cattle
Author(s) -
Shi L.,
Liu L.,
Ma Z.,
Lv X.,
Li C.,
Xu L.,
Han B.,
Li Y.,
Zhao F.,
Yang Y.,
Sun D.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
animal genetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.756
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1365-2052
pISSN - 0268-9146
DOI - 10.1111/age.12833
Subject(s) - biology , gene , snp , fatty acid , genetics , dairy cattle , exon , candidate gene , single nucleotide polymorphism , intron , genotype , biochemistry
Summary Our previous genome‐wide association study identified 83 genome‐wide significant SNP s and 20 novel promising candidate genes for milk fatty acids in Chinese Holstein. Among them, the enoyl‐CoA hydratase, short chain 1 ( ECHS 1 ) and enoyl‐CoA hydratase and 3‐hydroxyacyl CoA dehydrogenase ( EHHADH ) genes were located near two SNP s and one SNP respectively, and they play important roles in fatty acid metabolism pathways. We herein validated whether the two genes have genetic effects on milk fatty acid traits in dairy cattle. By re‐sequencing the full‐length coding region, partially adjacent introns and 3000 bp up/downstream flanking sequences, we identified 12 SNP s in ECHS 1: two in exons, four in the 3′ flanking region and six in introns. The g.25858322C>T SNP results in an amino acid replacement from leucine to phenylalanine and changes the secondary structure of the ECHS 1 protein, and single‐locus association analysis showed that it was significantly associated with three milk fatty acids ( P = 0.0002–0.0013). The remaining 11 SNP s were found to be significantly associated with at least one milk fatty acid ( P = <0.0001–0.0040). Also, we found that two haplotype blocks, consisting of nine and two SNP s respectively, were significantly associated with eight milk fatty acids ( P = <0.0001–0.0125). However, none of polymorphisms was observed in the EHHADH gene. In conclusion, our findings are the first to indicate that the ECHS 1 gene has a significant genetic impact on long‐chain unsaturated and medium‐chain saturated fatty acid traits in dairy cattle, although the biological mechanism is still undetermined and requires further in‐depth validation.