Comparison of Angus cattle populations using gene variants and microsatellites

Abstract

Seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in six genes (LEP, IGF2, MC1R, PMCH, CAPN1, and CAST), which have been previously associated with traits of economic importance, were used to compare allele frequencies of two populations of Angus cattle: a Canadian population and an International population. The same populations were also genotyped at 22 microsatellite markers. A significantly higher frequency of the CAST A allele, which is positively correlated with beef tenderness, was observed in the Canadian population (0.948) than in the International population (0.788; P = 0.007). Mean heterozygosity was higher for both populations using microsatellite data (0.578) compared with SNP data (0.332), due to the highly polymorphic nature of microsatellite markers. Key words: Angus cattle, diversity, heterozygosity, population assignment, selection