Genome-wide genotyping uncovers genetic profiles and history of the Russian cattle breeds.

One of the most economically important areas within the Russian agricultural sector is dairy and beef cattle farming contributing about $11 billion to the Russian economy annually. Trade connections, selection and breeding have resulted in the establishment of a number of breeds that are presumably adapted to local climatic conditions. Little however is known about the ancestry and history of Russian native cattle. To address this question, we genotyped 274 individuals from 18 breeds bred in Russia and compared them to 135 additional breeds from around the world that had been genotyped previously. Our results suggest a shared ancestry between most of the Russian cattle and European taurine breeds, apart from a few breeds that shared ancestry with the Asian taurines. The Yakut cattle, belonging to the latter group, was found to be the most diverged breed in the whole combined dataset according to structure results. Haplotype sharing further suggests that the Russian cattle can be divided into four major clusters reflecting ancestral relations with other breeds. Herein, we therefore shed light on to the history of Russian cattle and identified closely related breeds to those from Russia. Our results will facilitate future research on detecting signatures of selection in cattle genomes and eventually inform future genetics-assisted livestock breeding programs in Russia and in other countries.

Whole-genome SNP analysis elucidates the genetic structure of Russian cattle and its relationship with Eurasian taurine breeds.

BACKGROUND: The origin of native and locally developed Russian cattle breeds is linked to the historical, social, cultural, and climatic features of the diverse geographical regions of Russia. In the present study, we investigated the population structure of nine Russian cattle breeds and their relations to the cattle breeds from around the world to elucidate their origin. Genotyping of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in Bestuzhev (n = 26), Russian Black-and-White (n = 21), Kalmyk (n = 14), Kholmogor (n = 25), Kostromsky (n = 20), Red Gorbatov (n = 23), Suksun (n = 20), Yakut (n = 25), and Yaroslavl cattle breeds (n = 21) was done using the Bovine SNP50 BeadChip. SNP profiles from an additional 70 breeds were included in the analysis as references. RESULTS: The observed heterozygosity levels were quite similar in eight of the nine studied breeds (HO = 0.337-0.363) except for Yakut (Ho = 0.279). The inbreeding coefficients FIS ranged from -0.028 for Kalmyk to 0.036 for Russian Black-and-White and were comparable to those of the European breeds. The nine studied Russian breeds exhibited taurine ancestry along the C1 axis of the multidimensional scaling (MDS)-plot, but Yakut was clearly separated from the European taurine breeds on the C2 axis. Neighbor-Net and admixture analyses, discriminated three groups among the studied Russian breeds. Yakut and Kalmyk were assigned to a separate group because of their Turano-Mongolian origin. Russian Black-and-White, Kostromsky and Suksun showed transboundary European ancestry, which originated from the Holstein, Brown Swiss, and Danish Red breeds, respectively. The lowest level of introgression of transboundary breeds was recorded for the Kholmogor, Yaroslavl, Red Gorbatov and Bestuzhev breeds, which can be considered as an authentic genetic resource. CONCLUSIONS: Whole-genome SNP analysis revealed that Russian native and locally developed breeds have conserved authentic genetic patterns in spite of the considerable influence of Eurasian taurine cattle. In this paper, we provide fundamental genomic information that will contribute to the development of more accurate breed conservation programs and genetic improvement strategies.