Abstract
Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in feedlot cattle, caused by multiple pathogens that become more virulent in response to stress. As clinical signs often go undetected and various preventive strategies failed, identification of genes affecting BRD is essential for selection for resistance. Selective DNA pooling (SDP) was applied in a genome wide association study (GWAS) to map BRD QTLs in Israeli Holstein male calves. Kosher scoring of lung adhesions was used to allocate 122 and 62 animals to High (Glatt Kosher) and Low (Non-Kosher) resistant groups, respectively. Genotyping was performed using the Illumina BovineHD BeadChip according to the Infinium protocol. Moving average of -logP was used to map QTLs and Log drop was used to define their boundaries (QTLRs). The combined procedure was efficient for high resolution mapping. Nineteen QTLRs distributed over 13 autosomes were found, some overlapping previous studies. The QTLRs contain polymorphic functional and expression candidate genes to affect kosher status, with putative immunological and wound healing activities. Kosher phenotyping was shown to be a reliable means to map QTLs affecting BRD morbidity.
Highlights
Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) complex is the leading world-wide cause of morbidity and mortality in feedlot cattle
Genotyping was performed using the Illumina BovineHD BeadChip according to the Infinium protocol
The P-values over all autosomes are presented in S1 Fig. Table 1 shows critical marker P-values required to achieve significance at the given proportion of false positives (PFP) thresholds
Summary
Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) complex is the leading world-wide cause of morbidity and mortality in feedlot cattle. It includes upper and lower respiratory tract infections, diphtheria and pneumonia [1,2]. Due to immature functionality of the respiratory system in young cattle [3], BRD occurs more frequently and severely at young age, regardless of immunological and management considerations [4,5]. BRD is the most costly feedlot disease due to prevention and treatment costs, morbidity, mortality, and production amortization that includes performance, carcass merit, meat tenderness and palatability [1,2,6,7].
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