Genetic Diversity and Relationships among Spanish Beef Breeds Assessed by a Bovine High-density Chip

Abstract Text:

High-density SNP genotyping was used to describe the genetic variability and relationships among five Spanish beef cattle breeds (Asturiana de los Valles, Avileña – Negra Ibérica, Bruna dels Pirineus, Pirenaica and Retinta). A total of 239 samples were genotyped with the BovineHD (778 K) Beadchip, which proved its suitability for the study of these breeds. Genetic diversity, measured as the expected heterozygosity, was around 0.31, similar to other European cattle breeds. The degree of genetic differentiation was little to moderate, as the F_ST estimates ranged from 0.024 to 0.065. PCA analysis was able to distinguish five separated clusters corresponding to each breed. The clusters were confirmed through an analysis for ancestries which also showed admixture among some breeds. This contributes background information to explore the feasibility of genomic selection in Spanish beef breeds.

Keywords:

SNP variability

beef cattle