engleski

Complete mitogenome analysis supports multiple origin domestication hypothesis for European cattle

The domestication of wild Aurochs (Bos primigenius) is among the greatest achievements of mankind that had immense impact on the development of human society. Our understanding of the transformation from Aurochs to modern breeds is still not resolved as neither of the two hypotheses, single v. multiple origin domestication, have not been decisively rejected. To improve our understanding of cattle domestication we have sequenced the complete mitogenome of 196 individuals using NGS. Our sample encompassed 50 ‘new’ breeds and covered a large number of Central and South East European cattle breeds thus fulfilling the missing gap on the route from the Fertile Crescent to the Western Europe. We have performed the comprehensive complete mitogenome phylogenetic analyses, comprising 498 bovine samples (300 from the GenBank) from more than 100 cattle breeds. With the exception of very rare haplogroups (C, E, R, I and T7), mitogenomes sequenced here were classified within all known haplogroups (T1’2’3, T1, ..., T5 and T6), including even haplotypes assigned to the haplogroup P and Q. Up to now, haplogroup P was found only in the ancient West European Aurochs samples and the one sample from the modern Korean cattle. The existence of the haplogroup P (‘Aurochs’) was confirmed on the original sample and its four female relatives, sampled additionally. This is a direct evidence of the continuity and presence of Aurochs genes in modern breeds that further increases the possibility of multiple origin of cattle domestication, while we were not able to exclude post-domestication admixture. The haplogroup Q, here found in three individuals with two unique haplotypes, has diverged from the ‘macro-haplogroup T’ more than 35 thousand years ago and also indicates the presence of Aurochs genes in modern breeds. We have observed a large, newly arisen, divergence within ‘macro-haplogroup T’, with the new, rather deeply, rooted branches (non-classified haplogrups) prompting for the urgent reclassification of the cattle mitogenomic systematics.

cattle and related species ; evolutionary genomics ; high-throughput sequencing ; animal domestication ; breed/population identification

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