Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Five Chinese Local Cattle Breeds in Guizhou Province, China

Abstract

Background: This project analyzed the genetic diversity and population structure of five local cattle breeds in Guizhou, in order to implement the conservation plan for local cattle breeds and promote their sustainability. Methods: The experiments used a 100K SNP chip to obtain genotype data from the local cattle breeds, which was compared with that of two introduced breeds (Red Angus and Limousin) as controls (N=112). The genetic diversity, LD decay, PCA and phylogenetic tree were analyzed. Result: The effective number of alleles (Ne), nucleotide diversity (Pi) and LD decay rate of the local cattle breeds were higher than those of introduced breeds. The results of PCA, phylogenetic tree, G matrixand genetic distance analyses indicated that the five local breeds were on the same evolutionary branches without obvious clustering. The proportion of polymorphic markers (Pn), genetic diversityand genetic differences in the Weining cattle population was much higher than that of other populations. These findings provide a reference for the genetic structure and efficient protection and utilization of local cattle in Guizhou.