Regulatory genes—genes that control how other genes are used—are responsible for 69% of the heritability of dairy cattle traits such as milk production and fertility, according to a study published August 23 in the journal Cell Genomics.
However, up until now, there has been limited evidence to support a large role for regulatory genes in determining traits. For example, a recent human study estimated that only 11% of trait heritability is attributable to regulatory genes that alter gene expression.
"This creates a paradox called 'missing regulation," says Xiang."We decided to look at this problem to see how much variation in cattle traits can be explained by mutations changing gene expression or RNA splicing." To do this, the team first used the Cattle Genotype-Tissue Expression atlas to build a model of regulatory genes including both gene expression and RNA splicing genes. Then, they used their model to quantify how mutations in these regulatory genes impacted the heritability of traits in a separate dataset comprised of more than 120,000 dairy cattle genomes.
Unlike most prior studies that only examined variants of gene expression, this study simultaneously examined both gene expression and RNA splicing genes. They also examined both 'cis' and 'trans' variants—mutations that are located close or far away, respectively, from the coding region that they impact.
These findings could be a boon to farmers looking to selectively breed certain cattle traits."By mapping genetic variants related to
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