Haplotype diversity of the myostatin gene among beef cattle breeds.
A total of 678 individuals from 28 European bovine breeds were both phenotyped and analysed at the myostatin locus by the Single Strand Conformation Polymorphism (SSCP) method. Seven new mutations were identified which contribute to the high polymorphism (1 SNP every 100 bp) present in this small gene; twenty haplotypes were described and a genotyping method was set up using the Oligonucleotide Ligation Assay (OLA) method. Some haplotypes appeared to be exclusive to a particular breed; this was the case for 5 in the Charolaise (involving mutation Q204X) and 7 in the Maine-Anjou (involving mutation E226X). The relationships between the different haplotypes were studied, thus allowing to test the earlier hypothesis on the origin of muscular hypertrophy in Europe: muscular hypertrophy (namely nt821(del11)) was mainly spread in different waves from northern Europe milk purpose populations in most breeds; however, other mutations (mostly disruptive) arose in a single breed, were highly selected and have since scarcely evolved to other populations.
Dunner
Susana
S
Laboratorio de genética molecular, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain. dunner@vet.ucm.es
Miranda
M Eugenia
ME
Amigues
Yves
Y
Cañón
Javier
J
Georges
Michel
M
Hanset
Roger
R
Williams
John
J
Ménissier
François
F
D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle / Q000235:genetics*; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics*; D006239:Haplotypes / Q000235:genetics*; D006984:Hypertrophy / Q000235:genetics; D009132:Muscles / Q000473:pathology; D009154:Mutation / Q000235:genetics; D055435:Myostatin; D010641:Phenotype; D018807:Polymorphism, Single-Stranded Conformational; D016212:Transforming Growth Factor beta / Q000235:genetics*
D017931:DNA Primers; D055435:Myostatin; D016212:Transforming Growth Factor beta