Comparison of Angus cattle populations using gene variants and microsatellites.

摘要

Seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in 6 genes (LEP, IGF2, MC1R, PMCH, CAPN1 and CAST), which have been previously associated with traits of economic importance, were used to compare allele frequencies of 2 populations of Angus cattle: a Canadian population and an international population. The same populations were also genotyped at 22 microsatellite markers. A significantly higher frequency of the CAST A allele, which is positively correlated with beef tenderness, was observed in the Canadian population (0.948) than in the international population (0.788; P = 0.007). Mean heterozygosity was higher for both populations using microsatellite data (0.578) compared with SNP data (0.332), due to the highly polymorphic nature of microsatellite markers.