Abstract
Homologous recombination has been a focus of basic research for over a hundred years [1–3]. The advent of genomics has allowed fine-scale analyses of recombination, including genome-wide analysis of global recombination rate [4–6] and hotspot usage (the proportion of recombination that occurs at hotspots) [4,6]. Recently, PLOS Genetics published the work of Ma et al. [7] describing a genome-wide association study of global recombination rate in Holstein cattle using 3,224 males and 53,125 females and hotspot usage using 1,772 males and 12,756 females. The recombination rate and hotspot usage phenotypes were estimated using 223,364 samples that belonged to 185,917 three-generation families, which were extracted from the larger pedigree that contained over half a million Holstein cattle when the research was conducted.
Highlights
A time series analysis predicts that there will be over one million Holstein cattle genotyped by the end of 2015, and, in the six years, that number will likely triple (Fig 1)
The researchers show that, unlike sex differences observed in humans and mice, bulls have more recombination than cows, perhaps due to stronger selection intensity on artificial insemination sires compared with females
Comparative studies with beef cattle or other livestock species may elucidate the demographic forces behind these recombination sex differences and trends over time
Summary
Citation: Decker JE (2015) Agricultural Genomics: Commercial Applications Bring Increased Basic Research Power. PLoS Genet 11(11): e1005621. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1005621 Funding: JED is supported by grants MOHAAS0027, and MO-MSAS0014 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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