Gene-Set Enrichment Analysis for Identifying Genes and Biological Activities Associated with Growth Traits in Dromedaries.

Growth is an important heritable economic trait for dromedaries and necessary for planning a successful breeding program. Until now, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and QTL-mapping have identified significant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with growth in domestic animals, but in dromedaries, the number of studies is very low. This project aimed to find biological themes affecting growth in dromedaries. In the first step, 99 candidate SNPs were chosen from a previously established set of SNPs associated with body weight, gain, and birth weight in Iranian dromedaries. Next, 0.5 kb upstream and downstream of each candidate SNP were selected from NCBI (assembly accession: GCA_000803125.3). The annotation of fragments with candidate SNPs regarding the reference genome was retrieved using the Blast2GO tool. Candidate SNPs associated with growth were mapped to 22 genes, and 25 significant biological themes were identified to be related to growth in dromedaries. The main biological functions included calcium ion binding, protein binding, DNA-binding transcription factor activity, protein kinase activity, tropomyosin binding, myosin complex, actin-binding, ATP binding, receptor signaling pathway via JAK-STAT, and cytokine activity. EFCAB5, MTIF2, MYO3A, TBX15, IFNL3, PREX1, and TMOD3 genes are candidates for improving growth in camel breeding programs.

Genomic prediction for growth using a low-density SNP panel in dromedary camels.

For thousands of years, camels have produced meat, milk, and fiber in harsh desert conditions. For a sustainable development to provide protein resources from desert areas, it is necessary to pay attention to genetic improvement in camel breeding. By using genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) method we produced over 14,500 genome wide markers to conduct a genome- wide association study (GWAS) for investigating the birth weight, daily gain, and body weight of 96 dromedaries in the Iranian central desert. A total of 99 SNPs were associated with birth weight, daily gain, and body weight (p-value < 0.002). Genomic breeding values (GEBVs) were estimated with the BGLR package using (i) all 14,522 SNPs and (ii) the 99 SNPs by GWAS. Twenty-eight SNPs were associated with birth weight, daily gain, and body weight (p-value < 0.001). Annotation of the genomic region (s) within ± 100 kb of the associated SNPs facilitated prediction of 36 candidate genes. The accuracy of GEBVs was more than 0.65 based on all 14,522 SNPs, but the regression coefficients for birth weight, daily gain, and body weight were 0.39, 0.20, and 0.23, respectively. Because of low sample size, the GEBVs were predicted using the associated SNPs from GWAS. The accuracy of GEBVs based on the 99 associated SNPs was 0.62, 0.82, and 0.57 for birth weight, daily gain, and body weight. This report is the first GWAS using GBS on dromedary camels and identifies markers associated with growth traits that could help to plan breeding program to genetic improvement. Further researches using larger sample size and collaboration of the camel farmers and more profound understanding will permit verification of the associated SNPs identified in this project. The preliminary results of study show that genomic selection could be the appropriate way to genetic improvement of body weight in dromedary camels, which is challenging due to a long generation interval, seasonal reproduction, and lack of records and pedigrees.

Genome-Wide Diversity, Population Structure and Demographic History of Dromedaries in the Central Desert of Iran.

The development of camel husbandry for good production in a desert climate is very important, thus we need to understand the genetic basis of camels and give attention to genomic analysis. We assessed genome-wide diversity, linkage disequilibrium (LD), effective population size (Ne) and relatedness in 96 dromedaries originating from five different regions of the central desert of Iran using genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS). A total of 14,522 Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) with an average minor allele frequency (MAF) of 0.19 passed quality control and filtering steps. The average observed heterozygosity in the population was estimated at 0.25 ± 0.03. The mean of LD at distances shorter than 40 kb was low (r2 = 0.089 ± 0.234). The camels sampled from the central desert of Iran exhibited higher relatedness than Sudanese and lower than Arabian Peninsula dromedaries. Recent Ne of Iran's camels was estimated to be 89. Predicted Tajima's D (1.28) suggested a bottleneck or balancing selection in dromedary camels in the central desert of Iran. A general decrease in effective and census population size poses a threat for Iran's dromedaries. This report is the first SNP calling report on nearly the chromosome level and a first step towards understanding genomic diversity, population structure and demography in Iranian dromedaries.