New Insights into QTL Region on BTA14 Using Gayal (Bos frontalis) and Bangladeshi Indicine Cattle Breeds

Bovine chromosome 14 (BTA14) has been widely explored for quantitative trait loci (QTL) both in dairy and beef cattle. We investigated BTA14 in Bangladeshi indicine cattle and semi-domesticated meat type bovine species gayal (Bos frontalis) populations. With the application of 80K indicine single nucleotide polymorphism chip, BTA14 differ with an overall F_ST value of 0.29 between the populations. F_ST based approach detected four (rs110285699, rs133779145, rs137365107, rs137563087) highly differentiated loci and they all reside within 15 Mb to 45 Mb of beef cattle QTL region on this chromosome. Loci rs137365107, rs133779145 were found in two annotated orthologous genes LYN and CHD7 respectively and LYN has been found affecting human and bovine height. Loci rs110285699, rs137563087 were found in RB1CC1 and CSPP1 genes respectively. CSPP1 has been reported affecting fertility and production traits in Holstein cattle in a study. Our chip data lacks PLAG1 gene in those region. Therefore, we sequence the PLAG1 gene in our studied populations as well as African zebu and Korean Hanwoo for comparison. The neighbor joining tree resulted gayal together with a major node with Bangladeshi indicine cattle breeds whereas other major node comprises with Hanwoo and Ethiopian zebu in two sub groups there. Our results suggested that different QTL and causal mutations of the candidate genes could be attributable for the larger phenotypic differences between these two populations and PLAG1 gene might not playing its functional role as a candidate for controlling body stature in our studied gayal and Bangladeshi indicine cattle populations.