Associations of ORMDL1 gene copy number variations with growth traits in four Chinese sheep breeds.

Xiaogang Wang,Yifan Wen,Buren Chaogetu,Yongzhen Huang,Xiukai Cao,Linyong Hu,Yilei Ma,Ibrahim Elsaeid Elnour,Hong Chen,Xianyong Lan

doi:10.5194/aab-62-571-2019

Abstract

Copy number variations (CNVs) are gains and losses of genomic sequence of more than 50 bp between two individuals of a species. Also, CNV is considered to be one of the main elements affecting the phenotypic diversity and evolutionary adaptation of animals. ORMDL sphingolipid biosynthesis regulator 1 (ORMDL1) is a protein-coding gene associated with diseases and development. In our study, the polymorphism of ORMDL1 gene copy numbers in four Chinese sheep breeds (abbreviated CK, HU, STH, and LTH) was detected. In addition, we analyzed the transcriptional expression level of ORMDL1 gene in different tissues of sheep and examined the association of ORMDL1 CNV with growth traits. The statistical analysis revealed that ORMDL1 CNV was remarkably correlated with body height, heart girth, and circumference of cannon bone in HU sheep (), and there are significant effects on body weight, body height, body length, chest depth, and height of hip cross in STH sheep (). In conclusion, our results provide a basis for the relationship between CNV of ORMDL1 gene and sheep growth traits, suggesting that ORMDL1 CNV may be considered a promising marker for the molecular breeding of Chinese sheep.

Highlights

China has a rich resource of native sheep breeds (Zhao and Li, 2017), some of which possess specific traits such as fresh and tender meat, strong stress resistance, and so on
In order to investigate the distribution of ORMDL sphingolipid biosynthesis regulator 1 (ORMDL1) Copy number variations (CNVs) in different sheep breeds, we detected the copy number of ORMDL1 in CK, HU, STH, and LTH breeds
We selected 30 of each sheep breed to study whether the ORMDL1 gene has CNV

Summary

Introduction

China has a rich resource of native sheep breeds (Zhao and Li, 2017), some of which possess specific traits such as fresh and tender meat, strong stress resistance, and so on. Copy number variation (CNV) might be one of the main factors affecting phenotypic diversity and evolutionary adaptation in animals, employing a wide variety of mechanisms, such as gene dosage and transcript structure alterations, to modulate organismal plasticity (Clop et al, 2012). The recent studies showed that the different copy number types of genes in the sheep genome had different effects on the growth and development of sheep, such as several critical CNV-overlapping genes (BTG3, PTGS1, and PSPH) which were involved in fetal muscle development, prostaglandin (PG) synthesis, and bone color (Yang et al, 2018a). The CNV map of the Chinese native sheep genome has been successfully constructed based on the Illumina Ovine SNP 600 K BeadChip array (Ma et al, 2017). CNV detection and map construction have been accomplished in chicken (Wang et al, 2010), goat (Fontanesi et al, 2010), and cattle (Bae et al, 2010; Fadista et al, 2010)

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Discussion

Conclusion