Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2015 Feb 10:6:36.
doi: 10.3389/fgene.2015.00036. eCollection 2015.

Genomic data as the "hitchhiker's guide" to cattle adaptation: tracking the milestones of past selection in the bovine genome

Yuri T Utsunomiya  1 , Ana M Pérez O'Brien  2 , Tad S Sonstegard  3 , Johann Sölkner  2 , José F Garcia  4
Affiliations
Review

Genomic data as the "hitchhiker's guide" to cattle adaptation: tracking the milestones of past selection in the bovine genome

Yuri T Utsunomiya et al. Front Genet. .

Abstract

The bovine species have witnessed and played a major role in the drastic socio-economical changes that shaped our culture over the last 10,000 years. During this journey, cattle "hitchhiked" on human development and colonized the world, facing strong selective pressures such as dramatic environmental changes and disease challenge. Consequently, hundreds of specialized cattle breeds emerged and spread around the globe, making up a rich spectrum of genomic resources. Their DNA still carry the scars left from adapting to this wide range of conditions, and we are now empowered with data and analytical tools to track the milestones of past selection in their genomes. In this review paper, we provide a summary of the reconstructed demographic events that shaped cattle diversity, offer a critical synthesis of popular methodologies applied to the search for signatures of selection (SS) in genomic data, and give examples of recent SS studies in cattle. Then, we outline the potential and challenges of the application of SS analysis in cattle, and discuss the future directions in this field.

Keywords: Bos indicus; Bos taurus; adaptation; positive selection; single nucleotide polymorphism.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Ajmone-Marsan P. (2010). On the origin of cattle: how aurochs became cattle and colonized the world. Evol. Anthropol. Issues News Rev. 19, 148–157 10.1002/evan.20267 - DOI
    1. Axelsson E., Ratnakumar A., Arendt M.-L., Maqbool K., Webster M. T., Perloski M., et al. . (2013). The genomic signature of dog domestication reveals adaptation to a starch-rich diet. Nature 495, 360–364. 10.1038/nature11837 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bonfiglio S., Achilli A., Olivieri A., Negrini R., Colli L., Liotta L., et al. . (2010). The enigmatic origin of bovine mtDNA haplogroup R: Sporadic interbreeding or an independent event of Bos primigenius domestication in Italy? PLoS ONE 5:e15760. 10.1371/journal.pone.0015760 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bonhomme M., Chevalet C., Servin B., Boitard S., Abdallah J., Blott S., et al. . (2010). Detecting selection in population trees: the lewontin and krakauer test extended. Genetics 186, 241–262. 10.1534/genetics.110.117275 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bradley D. G., MacHugh D. E., Cunningham P., Loftus R. T. (1996). Mitochondrial diversity and the origins of African and European cattle. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 93, 5131–5135. 10.1073/pnas.93.10.5131 - DOI - PMC - PubMed