engleski

Combining novel motion technology and genotype data in an Italian horse native breed

With the advent of genomics, nowadays there is a possibility to further understand the genetic background of economically relevant traits in horses. However, in the case of highly polygenic and complex traits, such as movement traits, this achievement might be more challenging. Application of Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) was successful, especially for highly heritable traits, such as conformation and disease-related traits. Another important aspect to consider is the availability of data collected in a large cohort of animals ; indeed the GWAS approach has been mainly applied in studies with great population size. Nevertheless, combining novel motion technology, which allows more objective measurements, with genotype data might help to further unravel the genetic background of movement traits also in breeds with unavailability of large number of genotyped horses. Thus, in this study, we aimed to perform a GWAS analysis in the Bardigiano horse breed, an Italian breed traditionally used in agriculture. We used the Equisense motion® sensor, which consists of a gyroscope and an accelerometer to objectively record several gaits-related traits linked with the horse’s health, performance, and physical condition. A total of 185 horses were genotyped with the GGP Equine 70k ® SNP chip. The quality control of the genotype data was performed in Plink v 1.9 and the GWAS analysis in R Software. To assess the association with genotype information, a linear mixed model was used, corrected for sex, the sampling date, and for biometrical measurements. We mostly found significant results on the trot gait, for example, for the symmetry we found 9 significantly associated SNPs. In the proximity of those SNPs (windows size±250 kb) 22 protein-coding genes, 3 miRNA, and 7 lncRNA were identified. Some of those genes have known function in collagen structure and the control of the synapsis response. Further analysis of those genes might permit to enhance the use of genomics in the Bardigiano horse breed which is facing the conversion from agricultural to riding purposes.

native breed ; Bardigiano horse ; SNP ; motion technology

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