Abstract
This study was conducted to establish genetic criteria for phenotypic characteristics of Hanwoo cattle based on allele frequencies and genetic variance analysis using microsatellite markers. Analysis of the genetic diversity among 399 Hanwoo cattle classified according to nose pigmentation and coat color was carried out using 22 microsatellite markers. The results revealed that the INRA035 locus was associated with the highest Fis (0.536). Given that the Fis value for the Hanwoo INRA035 population ranged from 0.533 (white) to 1.000 (white spotted), this finding was consistent with the loci being fixed in Hanwoo cattle. Expected heterozygosities of the Hanwoo groups classified by coat colors and degree of nose pigmentation ranged from 0.689±0.023 (Holstein) to 0.743±0.021 (nose pigmentation level of d). Normal Hanwoo and animals with a mixed white coat showed the closest relationship because the lowest DA value was observed between these groups. However, a pair-wise differentiation test of Fst showed no significant difference among the Hanwoo groups classified by coat color and degree of nose pigmentation (p<0.01). Moreover, results of the neighbor-joining tree based on a DA genetic distance matrix within 399 Hanwoo individuals and principal component analyses confirmed that different groups of cattle with mixed coat color and nose pigmentation formed other specific groups representing Hanwoo genetic and phenotypic characteristics. The results of this study support a relaxation of policies regulating bull selection or animal registration in an effort to minimize financial loss, and could provide basic information that can be used for establishing criteria to classify Hanwoo phenotypes.
Highlights
Animal breeds are developed based on geographic, historical, and evolutionary backgrounds, and are defined by specific phenotypic characteristics
Analysis of genetic diversity in each group Heterozygosity and the number of alleles of the Hanwoo groups were formed by the classification based on different hair color and black nose (Table 2)
Results of NJ tree analysis based on DA genetic distance revealed that there was a group in which significant difference is not recognized despite the high bootstrap value in the Fst analysis and in the dendrogram that used the genetic distance of each individual animal
Summary
Animal breeds are developed based on geographic, historical, and evolutionary backgrounds, and are defined by specific phenotypic characteristics. In 1975, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Korea established new inspection criteria for breeding and candidate breeding stocks These regulations mandated that yellowish brown coat color for breeds with differing hair and nose color were a basis for disqualification. Sci. 25:1205-1215 animals with white spots and a black nose Despite these efforts, in the latter half of 1970s the purebred improvement project that included production of a pure Hanwoo lineage breeding complex and an initiative to develop new breeds by crossbreeding introduced breeds with Hanwoo was initiated. The intent was to create new crossbreed lineages that had desirable characteristics of both breeds This project led to the decision to allow the import of beef cattle following complaints by farmers due to lower prices of beef in 1979 (Roh, 2008). There is virtually no information about the frequencies of black noses or different coat colors observed among Hanwoo cattle in the Republic of Korea (Lee et al, 2002)
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