Association of Microsatellite Profile with Phenotypic Traits of Semi-Domesticated Reindeer

Reindeer herding is the historical branch of animal husbandry in the northern regions of the Russian Federation. There are four reindeer breeds, the most numerous of which is Nenets (with over 800,000 reindeer). For further development of the reindeer herding, in addition to traditional breeding methods, it is necessary to apply modern technologies, such as genetic analysis. The aim of the current work was to identify the possible association between microsatellites loci and phenotypic traits of Nenets reindeer breed. DNA was extracted from tissue samples of 43 female individuals using Nextech column (Agrobiogen Biotechnologie GmbH, Munich, Germany) according to manufacturer's recommendations. 14 microsatellite loci (NVHRT21, NVHRT24, NVHRT76, RT1, RT6, RT7, RT9, RT27, RT30, RT7, RT25, RT13, NVHRT03, RT5 and NVHRT73) were selected to examine the associations between marker genotypes and eight phenotypic traits: height at the withers (HaW), chest depth (CD), chest width (CW), chest girth (CG), wrist girth (WG), body length (BL), head length (HL) and body weight (BW). Associations between the genotypes and the traits were evaluated using the one-way Anova model. Results were considered statistically significant if the p-value was less than 0.05. All of the microsatellites loci were polymorphic and the number of alleles ranged from three (NVHRT03) to six (RT25 and NVHRT73). RT6 marker was associated with four traits: BW (p<0.001), CG (p<0.05) BL (p<0.01), HL (p<0.01), whereas RT27 marker was linked to three traits: HaW (p<0.05), BW (p<0.05) and HL (p<0.01). Variability of HL trait was also associated with two loci: RT25 (p<0.05) and NV 24 (p<0.001). RT30 marker was only significantly associated with height at the withers (p<0.05). Thus, our study revealed that five microsatellite loci were significantly associated with five phenotypically important traits (HaW, HL, BW, CG and BL) and these markers could be potentially used for the improvement of reindeer herding breeding program. This research was funded by Russian scientific foundation project № 16-16-10068.