Abstract
BackgroundSince goat was domesticated 10,000 years ago, many factors have contributed to the differentiation of goat breeds and these are classified mainly into two types: (i) adaptation to different breeding systems and/or purposes and (ii) adaptation to different environments. As a result, approximately 600 goat breeds have developed worldwide; they differ considerably from one another in terms of phenotypic characteristics and are adapted to a wide range of climatic conditions. In this work, we analyzed the AdaptMap goat dataset, which is composed of data from more than 3000 animals collected worldwide and genotyped with the CaprineSNP50 BeadChip. These animals were partitioned into groups based on geographical area, production uses, available records on solid coat color and environmental variables including the sampling geographical coordinates, to investigate the role of natural and/or artificial selection in shaping the genome of goat breeds.ResultsSeveral signatures of selection on different chromosomal regions were detected across the different breeds, sub-geographical clusters, phenotypic and climatic groups. These regions contain genes that are involved in important biological processes, such as milk-, meat- or fiber-related production, coat color, glucose pathway, oxidative stress response, size, and circadian clock differences. Our results confirm previous findings in other species on adaptation to extreme environments and human purposes and provide new genes that could explain some of the differences between goat breeds according to their geographical distribution and adaptation to different environments.ConclusionsThese analyses of signatures of selection provide a comprehensive first picture of the global domestication process and adaptation of goat breeds and highlight possible genes that may have contributed to the differentiation of this species worldwide.
Highlights
Since goat was domesticated 10,000 years ago, many factors have contributed to the differentiation of goat breeds and these are classified mainly into two types: (i) adaptation to different breeding systems and/or purposes and (ii) adaptation to different environments
Several factors have contributed to the differentiation of goat breeds, which are classified mainly into two types: (i) adaptation to different breeding systems and/or purposes, i.e. in some countries, breeds have been selected for specific production traits such as milk (e.g. Saanen and Alpine), meat (e.g. Landrace and Boer) and fiber (e.g. Angora and Cashmere); and (ii) adaptation to different environments, i.e. goats have adapted to various agro-climatic conditions
We considered several groups of animals that were partitioned based on geographical area, as done in Colli et al [21], production uses, available records on solid coat color and environmental variables in relation to the geographical coordinates of sampling
Summary
Since goat was domesticated 10,000 years ago, many factors have contributed to the differentiation of goat breeds and these are classified mainly into two types: (i) adaptation to different breeding systems and/or purposes and (ii) adaptation to different environments. Several factors have contributed to the differentiation of goat breeds, which are classified mainly into two types: (i) adaptation to different breeding systems and/or purposes, i.e. in some countries, breeds have been selected for specific production traits such as milk (e.g. Saanen and Alpine), meat (e.g. Landrace and Boer) and fiber (e.g. Angora and Cashmere); and (ii) adaptation to different environments, i.e. goats have adapted to various agro-climatic conditions. Signatures of selection are defined as the reduction, elimination or change of genetic variation in genomic regions that are adjacent to causative variants in response to natural or artificial selective pressure Such variants usually affect several traits and contribute to shaping a breed [6]. The recent development of species-specific genomic tools (such as single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays) have allowed researchers to extend whole-genome analyses to livestock species, which cover many aspects of genetic diversity, including signatures left by selection processes [7]
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