title: Characterizing a region on BTA11 affecting β-lactoglobulin content of milk using high-density genotyping and haplotype grouping.
abstract: Milk β-lactoglobulin (β-LG) content is of interest as it is associated with nutritional and manufacturing properties. It is known that milk β-LG content is strongly affected by genetic factors. In cattle, most of the genetic differences are associated with a chromosomal region on BTA11, which contains the β-LG gene. The aim of this study was to characterize this region using 777 k SNP data (BovineHDbeadChip) and perform a haplotype-based association study. A statistical approach was developed to build haplotypes that capture the genetic variation associated with this genomic region.
  
  
  
  The SNP with the most significant effect on β-lactoglobulin content was one of the 2 causal mutations responsible for the β-lactoglobulin protein variants A/B. Haplotypes based on 2 to 5 selected lead SNP were clustered in groups with different effects on β-lactoglobulin content. Four different groups were identified suggesting that β-lactoglobulin variant A and B can be further refined in A1, A2, B1and B2.
  
  
  
  This study showed that β-lactoglobulin protein variants A/B do not explain all genetic variation associated with the tail part of BTA11 but this region contains more than one mutation with an effect on β-lactoglobulin content. These findings can be used for selection of cows with higher cheese yield, which is desirable for the dairy industry.
authors.affiliation: Present address: PEGASE, Agrocampus Ouest, INRA, 35590, Saint-Gilles, France.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7382-9309
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bedere
authors.affiliation: Animal Breeding and Genomics Centre, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 338, 6700, AH, Wageningen, The Netherlands. henk.bovenhuis@wur.nl.
authors.forename: Henk
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bovenhuis
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D060005:Genotyping Techniques; D006239:Haplotypes / Q000235:genetics*; D007782:Lactoglobulins / Q000032:analysis* / Q000235:genetics*; D008892:Milk / Q000737:chemistry*; D009154:Mutation; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
chemical_list: D007782:Lactoglobulins
keywords: Association study; Bovine; Dairy cow; Haplotype; β-lactoglobulin