Genetic Features of Reproductive Traits in Bovine and Buffalo: Lessons From Bovine to Buffalo

Baoshun Shao; Hui Sun; Muhammad Jamil Ahmad; Nasser Ghanem; Hamdy Abdel-Shafy; Chao Du; Tingxian Deng; Shahid Mansoor; Yang Zhou; Yifen Yang; Shujun Zhang; Liguo Yang; Guohua Hua

doi:10.3389/fgene.2021.617128

Genetic Features of Reproductive Traits in Bovine and Buffalo: Lessons From Bovine to Buffalo

Front Genet. 2021 Mar 23:12:617128. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2021.617128. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Baoshun Shao¹, Hui Sun¹, Muhammad Jamil Ahmad¹, Nasser Ghanem², Hamdy Abdel-Shafy², Chao Du¹, Tingxian Deng^{1

3}, Shahid Mansoor⁴, Yang Zhou^{1

5

6}, Yifen Yang^{1

2}, Shujun Zhang^{1

5

6}, Liguo Yang^{1

5

6}, Guohua Hua^{1

5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Key Lab of Agricultural Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Ministry of Education, College of Animal Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.
² Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt.
³ Guangxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Buffalo Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction Technology, Buffalo Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanning, China.
⁴ National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad, Pakistan.
⁵ International Joint Research Centre for Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Wuhan, China.
⁶ Hubei Province's Engineering Research Center in Buffalo Breeding and Products, Wuhan, China.

Abstract

Bovine and buffalo are important livestock species that have contributed to human lives for more than 1000 years. Improving fertility is very important to reduce the cost of production. In the current review, we classified reproductive traits into three categories: ovulation, breeding, and calving related traits. We systematically summarized the heritability estimates, molecular markers, and genomic selection (GS) for reproductive traits of bovine and buffalo. This review aimed to compile the heritability and genome-wide association studies (GWASs) related to reproductive traits in both bovine and buffalos and tried to highlight the possible disciplines which should benefit buffalo breeding. The estimates of heritability of reproductive traits ranged were from 0 to 0.57 and there were wide differences between the populations. For some specific traits, such as age of puberty (AOP) and calving difficulty (CD), the majority beef population presents relatively higher heritability than dairy cattle. Compared to bovine, genetic studies for buffalo reproductive traits are limited for age at first calving and calving interval traits. Several quantitative trait loci (QTLs), candidate genes, and SNPs associated with bovine reproductive traits were screened and identified by candidate gene methods and/or GWASs. The IGF1 and LEP pathways in addition to non-coding RNAs are highlighted due to their crucial relevance with reproductive traits. The distribution of QTLs related to various traits showed a great differences. Few GWAS have been performed so far on buffalo age at first calving, calving interval, and days open traits. In addition, we summarized the GS studies on bovine and buffalo reproductive traits and compared the accuracy between different reports. Taken together, GWAS and candidate gene approaches can help to understand the molecular genetic mechanisms of complex traits. Recently, GS has been used extensively and can be performed on multiple traits to improve the accuracy of prediction even for traits with low heritability, and can be combined with multi-omics for further analysis.

Keywords: GWAS; breeding; genetic improvement; heritability; reproduction.

Publication types

Review