AUTHOR=Niu Qunhao , Zhang Tianliu , Xu Ling , Wang Tianzhen , Wang Zezhao , Zhu Bo , Gao Xue , Chen Yan , Zhang Lupei , Gao Huijiang , Li Junya , Xu Lingyang TITLE=Identification of Candidate Variants Associated With Bone Weight Using Whole Genome Sequence in Beef Cattle JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics VOLUME=12 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2021.750746 DOI=10.3389/fgene.2021.750746 ISSN=1664-8021 ABSTRACT=

Bone weight is critical to affect body conformation and stature in cattle. In this study, we conducted a genome-wide association study for bone weight in Chinese Simmental beef cattle based on the imputed sequence variants. We identified 364 variants associated with bone weight, while 350 of them were not included in the Illumina BovineHD SNP array, and several candidate genes and GO terms were captured to be associated with bone weight. Remarkably, we identified four potential variants in a candidate region on BTA6 using Bayesian fine-mapping. Several important candidate genes were captured, including LAP3, MED28, NCAPG, LCORL, SLIT2, and IBSP, which have been previously reported to be associated with carcass traits, body measurements, and growth traits. Notably, we found that the transcription factors related to MED28 and LCORL showed high conservation across multiple species. Our findings provide some valuable information for understanding the genetic basis of body stature in beef cattle.