Open AccessGenome-Wide Association Study Reveals the PLAG1 Gene for Knuckle, Biceps and Shank Weight in Simmental Beef Cattle
Author(s) -
Yifu Song,
Lingyang Xu,
Yan Chen,
Lupei Zhang,
Huijiang Gao,
Bo Zhu,
Hong Niu,
Wengang Zhang,
Jin Xia,
Xue Gao,
Junya Li
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0168316
Subject(s) - biology , genome wide association study , single nucleotide polymorphism , quantitative trait locus , genetics , beef cattle , genetic association , candidate gene , biceps , gene , genotype , anatomy
Carcass traits of beef cattle have been genetically improved to increase yield of high quality meat. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) is a powerful method to identify genetic variants associated with carcass traits. For the 770K genotyped SNPs from 1141 Chinese Simmental cattle, we used the compressed mixed linear model (CMLM) to perform a genome-wide association study for knuckle, biceps and shank of beef carcass traits. Seventeen significantly associated SNPs were found, which are located on BTA6, BTA14 and BTA15. Interestingly, one pleiotropic quantitative trait nucleotide (QTN), named BovineHD1400007259 ( p < 10 −8 ) within the well-known gene region PLAG1-CHCHD7 on BTA14, was found to govern variation of the knuckle, biceps and shank traits. The QTN accounted for 8.6% of phenotypic variance for biceps. In addition, 16 more SNPs distributed on BTA14 were detected as being associated with the carcass traits.