Search Results (2)

Background: Saryarka sheep belong to fat-tailed coarse-wool sheep breed. This breed is distinguished by increased meat productivity while being competitive in young lamb production. Live weight and body indices are relevant data for assessing sheep body constitution, which directly affects the breeding characteristics and meat productivity of animals. Objectives: This study aimed to find associations with SNPs and nine phenotypic characteristics of the Saryarka fat-tailed coarse-wool sheep breed including live weight and eight body indices (wither height, rump height, bicoastal diameter, body depth, body length, rump width, heart girth, and cannon bone circumference), and find candidate genes related to these characteristics. Methods: A total of 100 animals from the Karaganda region of Kazakhstan were used in this study. Live weight and eight body indices of sheep were measured using tape and electronic scales. The blood samples of the animals were used for DNA extraction. DNA samples were genotyped with the OvineSNP50 Genotyping BeadChip and analyzed using GWAS. Statistically significant SNPs were identified for each characteristic trait referencing the genome of Ovis aries (Oar_v3.1) using BioMart. Results: The GWAS results demonstrated a substantial chromosomal-level correlation between 32 chromosome-wide significant and suggestively significant SNPs in the studied sheep breed. Overall, seven SNPs located in seven different genes were revealed as candidates for live weight and four body indices: s20793.1 SNP in the IGFBP6 gene for live weight, OAR4_54217431.1 SNP in the ST7 gene for bicoastal diameter, s25229.1 in the SCD5 gene, and s01175.1 SNP in the DTNBP1 gene for rump width, OAR2_175574781.1 SNP in the KYNU gene for heart girth, and OAR1_209022621.1 SNP in the FGF12 gene and s15415.1 SNP in the FTO gene for cannon bone circumference. Some of these genes were previously reported to be involved in body constitution and fat deposit in other sheep breeds. Conclusions: The results of the present study open up new opportunities for targeted sheep breeding for meat and fat productivity. Full article

Lamb meat has become increasingly popular in several nations during the last few decades, especially in Kazakhstan. Due to the rising demand for lamb meat, our sheep breeders developed a new fat-tailed sheep and named the breed Baisary. Animals of the Baisary breed are characterized by a large physique, strong constitution, stretched body, deep and wide chest, medium or large-sized fat tail, long legs (height at the withers of adult rams 85–100 cm, sheep 75–90 cm), long lanceolate ears and strong hooves. Lambs of the Baisary breed surpass their peers of the original parent breeds by 15–20% in live weight at the weaning period. To characterize the genetic structure of Baisary sheep and compare it with the ancestral breeds, we genotyped 247 individuals from five sheep breeds with Ovine SNP50K. The estimated private allelic richness ranged from 0.0030 to 0.0047, with the minimum and maximum provided by the Gissar (Giss1) and Kazakh meat-wool breeds, respectively. The highest and lowest F_IS values, meanwhile, were observed in the Afghan fat-tailed population and Baisary sheep, respectively. The calculated inbreeding coefficient showed that Edilbay and Baisary sheep have excess heterozygosity. According to principal components analysis, Baisary are close to Gissar populations, the Afghan fat-tailed breed and Edilbay sheep. These results were consistent with the Admixture and phylogenetic analysis. Overall, our results indicated that Baisary sheep differ genetically from their progenitors. Full article