Estimates of genomic inbreeding and identification of candidate regions that differ between Chinese indigenous sheep breeds

Background:A run of homozygosity(ROH)is a consecutive tract of homozygous genotypes in an individual that indicates it has inherited the same ancestral haplotype from both parents.Genomic inbreeding can be quantified based on ROH.Genomic regions enriched with ROH may be indicative of selection sweeps and are known as ROH islands.We carried out ROH analyses in five Chinese indigenous sheep breeds;Altay sheep(n=50 individuals),Large-tailed Han sheep(n=50),Hulun Buir sheep(n=150),Short-tailed grassland sheep(n=150),and Tibetan sheep(n=50),using genotypes from an Ovine Infinium HD SNP BeadChip.Results:A total of 18,288 ROH were identified.The average number of ROH per individual across the five sheep breeds ranged from 39(Hulun Buir sheep)to 78(Large-tailed Han sheep)and the average length of ROH ranged from 0.929 Mb(Hulun Buir sheep)to 2.544 Mb(Large-tailed Han sheep).The effective population size(Ne)of Altay sheep,Large-tailed Han sheep,Hulun Buir sheep,Short-tailed grassland sheep and Tibetan sheep were estimated to be 81,78,253,238 and 70 five generations ago.The highest ROH-based inbreeding estimate(FROH)was 0.0808 in Large-tailed Han sheep,whereas the lowest F_(ROH)was 0.0148 in Hulun Buir sheep.Furthermore,the highest proportion of long ROH fragments(>5 Mb)was observed in the Large-tailed Han sheep breed which indicated recent inbreeding.In total,49 ROH islands(the top 0.1% of the SNPs most commonly observed in ROH)were identified in the five sheep breeds.Three ROH islands were common to all the five sheep breeds,and were located on OAR2:12.2-12.3 Mb,OAR12:78.4-79.1 Mb and OAR13:53.0-53.6 Mb.Three breed-specific ROH islands were observed in Altay sheep(OAR15:3.4-3.8 Mb),Large-tailed Han sheep(ORA17:53.5-53.8 Mb)and Tibetan sheep(ORA5:19.8-20.2 Mb).Collectively,the ROH islands harbored 78 unique genes,including 19 genes that have been documented as having associations with tail types,adaptation,growth,body size,reproduction or immune response.Conclusion:Different ROH patterns were observed in five Chinese indigenous sheep breeds,which reflected their different population histories.Large-tailed Han sheep had the highest genomic inbreeding coefficients and the highest proportion of long ROH fragments indicating recent inbreeding.Candidate genes in ROH islands could be used to illustrate the genetic characteristics of these five sheep breeds.Our findings contribute to the understanding of genetic diversity and population demography,and help design and implement breeding and conservation strategies for Chinese sheep.

Fine‑tuning genomic and pedigree inbreeding rates in equine population with a deep and reliable stud book:the case of the Pura Raza Española horse

Background:Estimating inbreeding,which is omnipresent and inevitable in livestock populations,is a primary goal for management and animal breeding especially for those interested in mitigating the negative consequences of inbreeding.Inbreeding coefficients have been historically estimated by using pedigree information;however,over the last decade,genome-base inbreeding coefficients have come to the forefront in this field.The Pura Raza Espanola(PRE)horse is an autochthonous Spanish horse breed which has been recognised since 1912.The total PRE population(344,718 horses)was used to estimate Classical(F),Ballou’s ancestral,Kalinowski’s ancestral,Kalinowski’s new and the ancestral history coefficient values.In addition,genotypic data from a selected population of 805 PRE individuals was used to determine the individual inbreeding coefficient using SNP-by-SNP-based techniques(methods of moments-FHOM-,the diagonal elements of the genomic-FG-,and hybrid matrixes-FH-)and ROH measures(FRZ).The analyse of both pedigree and genomic based inbreeding coefficients in a large and robust population such as the PRE horse,with proven parenteral information for the last 40 years and a high degree of completeness(over 90%for the last 70 years)will allow us to understand PRE genetic variability better and the correlations between the estimations will give the data greater reliability.Results:The mean values of the pedigree-based inbreeding coefficients ranged from 0.01(F for the last 3 generations-F3-)to 0.44(ancestral history coefficient)and the mean values of genomic-based inbreeding coefficients varied from 0.05(FRZ for three generations,FH and FHOM)to 0.11(FRZ for nine generations).Significant correlations were also found between pedigree and genomic inbreeding values,which ranged between 0.58(F3 with FHOM)and 0.79(F with FRZ).In addition,the correlations between FRZ estimated for the last 20 generations and the pedigree-based inbreeding highlight the fact that fewer generations of genomic data are required when comparing total inbreeding values,and the opposite when ancient values are calculated.Conclusions:Ultimately,our results show that it is still useful to work with a deep and reliable pedigree in pedigreebased genetic studies with very large effective population sizes.Obtaining a satisfactory parameter will always be desirable,but the approximation obtained with a robust pedigree will allow us to work more efficiently and economically than with massive genotyping.