Lactation stage dependent genome-wide association mapping for longitudinal data of milk fatty acids in dairy cattle using Bayesian mixture models

Summary

In this paper we present the results of a genome-wide association study to identify significant genes that contribute to genetic variation in abundant milk fatty acids (FAs) C14:0 and C16:0 with considering lactation stage effect. FA composition phenotypes were measured using Application Note 64 (FOSS) and were available on 24,661 milk samples from 3,213 Danish Holstein cows. Association mapping analyses was performed using a Bayesian Variable Selection method. Results showed, in total 21 significant SNPs were detected for C14:0 and 18 significant SNPs were detected for C16:0 that are significant in changing over lactation stage for abundant milk FAs C14:0 and C16:0. For both milk FAs most significant SNPs influencing the slope of the lactation curve were on BTA 5 with associated SNP: ARS-BFGL-NGS-15498 and on BTA 14 with associated SNPs: ARS-BFGL-NGS-4939 (DGAT1) and, ARS-BFGL-NGS-57820 (FOXH1). All the main genes had same effects.