Dataset Information

Genetic parameters and genomic breeding values for digital dermatitis in Holstein Friesian dairy cattle: host susceptibility, infectivity and the basic reproduction ratio.

ABSTRACT:

Background

For infectious diseases, the probability that an animal gets infected depends on its own susceptibility, and on the number of infectious herd mates and their infectivity. Together with the duration of the infectious period, susceptibility and infectivity determine the basic reproduction ratio of the disease ([Formula: see text]). [Formula: see text] is the average number of secondary cases caused by a typical infectious individual in an otherwise uninfected population. An infectious disease dies out when [Formula: see text] is lower than 1. Thus, breeding strategies that aim at reducing disease prevalence should focus on reducing [Formula: see text], preferably to a value lower than 1. In animal breeding, however, [Formula: see text] has received little attention. Here, we estimate the additive genetic variance in host susceptibility, host infectivity, and [Formula: see text] for the endemic claw disease digital dermatitis (DD) in Holstein Friesian dairy cattle, and estimate genomic breeding values (GEBV) for these traits. We recorded DD disease status of both hind claws of 1513 cows from 12 Dutch dairy farms, every 2 weeks, 11 times. The genotype data consisted of 75,904 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for 1401 of the cows. We modelled the probability that a cow got infected between recordings, and compared four generalized linear mixed models. All models included a genetic effect for susceptibility; Models 2 and 4 also included a genetic effect for infectivity, while Models 1 and 2 included a farm*period interaction. We corrected for variation in exposure to infectious herd mates via an offset.

Results

GEBV for [Formula: see text] from the model that included genetic effects for susceptibility only had an accuracy of?~?0.39 based on cross-validation between farms, which is very high given the limited amount of data and the complexity of the trait. Models with a genetic effect for infectivity showed a larger bias, but also a slightly higher accuracy of GEBV. Additive genetic standard deviation for [Formula: see text] was large, i.e.?~?1.17, while the mean [Formula: see text] was 2.36.

Conclusions

GEBV for [Formula: see text] showed substantial variation. The mean [Formula: see text] was only about one genetic standard deviation greater than 1. These results suggest that lowering DD prevalence by selective breeding is promising.

SUBMITTER: Biemans F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6865030 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Genetic parameters and genomic breeding values for digital dermatitis in Holstein Friesian dairy cattle: host susceptibility, infectivity and the basic reproduction ratio.

Biemans Floor F de Jong Mart C M MCM Bijma Piter P

Genetics, selection, evolution : GSE 20191120 1

<h4>Background</h4>For infectious diseases, the probability that an animal gets infected depends on its own susceptibility, and on the number of infectious herd mates and their infectivity. Together with the duration of the infectious period, susceptibility and infectivity determine the basic reproduction ratio of the disease ([Formula: see text]). [Formula: see text] is the average number of secondary cases caused by a typical infectious individual in an otherwise uninfected population. An infe ...[more]

PMID: 31747869

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Project description:BackgroundInbreeding depression refers to the decrease in mean performance due to inbreeding. Inbreeding depression is caused by an increase in homozygosity and reduced expression of (on average) favourable dominance effects. Dominance effects and allele frequencies differ across loci, and consequently inbreeding depression is expected to differ along the genome. In this study, we investigated differences in inbreeding depression across the genome of Dutch Holstein Friesian cattle, by estimating dominance effects and effects of regions of homozygosity (ROH).MethodsGenotype (75 k) and phenotype data of 38,792 cows were used. For nine yield, fertility and udder health traits, GREML models were run to estimate genome-wide inbreeding depression and estimate additive, dominance and ROH variance components. For this purpose, we introduced a ROH-based relationship matrix. Additive, dominance and ROH effects per SNP were obtained through back-solving. In addition, a single SNP GWAS was performed to identify significant additive, dominance or ROH associations.ResultsGenome-wide inbreeding depression was observed for all yield, fertility and udder health traits. For example, a 1% increase in genome-wide homozygosity was associated with a decrease in 305-d milk yield of approximately 99 kg. For yield traits only, including dominance and ROH effects in the GREML model resulted in a better fit (P < 0.05) than a model with only additive effects. After correcting for the effect of genome-wide homozygosity, dominance and ROH variance explained less than 1% of the phenotypic variance for all traits. Furthermore, dominance and ROH effects were distributed evenly along the genome. The most notable region with a favourable dominance effect for yield traits was on chromosome 5, but overall few regions with large favourable dominance effects and significant dominance associations were detected. No significant ROH-associations were found.ConclusionsInbreeding depression was distributed quite equally along the genome and was well captured by genome-wide homozygosity. These findings suggest that, based on 75 k SNP data, there is little benefit of accounting for region-specific inbreeding depression in selection schemes.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Inbreeding decreases animal performance (inbreeding depression), but not all inbreeding is expected to be equally harmful. Recent inbreeding is expected to be more harmful than ancient inbreeding, because selection decreases the frequency of deleterious alleles over time. Selection efficiency is increased by inbreeding, a process called purging. Our objective was to investigate effects of recent and ancient inbreeding on yield, fertility and udder health traits in Dutch Holstein-Friesian cows. METHODS:In total, 38,792 first-parity cows were included. Pedigree inbreeding ([Formula: see text]) was computed and 75 k genotype data were used to compute genomic inbreeding, among others based on regions of homozygosity (ROH) in the genome ([Formula: see text]). RESULTS:Inbreeding depression was observed, e.g. a 1% increase in [Formula: see text] was associated with a 36.3 kg (SE?=?2.4) decrease in 305-day milk yield, a 0.48 day (SE?=?0.15) increase in calving interval and a 0.86 unit (SE?=?0.28) increase in somatic cell score for day 150 through to 400. These effects equalled -?0.45, 0.12 and 0.05% of the trait means, respectively. When [Formula: see text] was split into generation-based components, inbreeding on recent generations was more harmful than inbreeding on more distant generations for yield traits. When [Formula: see text] was split into new and ancestral components, based on whether alleles were identical-by-descent for the first time or not, new inbreeding was more harmful than ancestral inbreeding, especially for yield traits. For example, a 1% increase in new inbreeding was associated with a 2.42 kg (SE?=?0.41) decrease in 305-day fat yield, compared to a 0.03 kg (SE?=?0.71) increase for ancestral inbreeding. There were no clear differences between effects of long ROH (recent inbreeding) and short ROH (ancient inbreeding). CONCLUSIONS:Inbreeding depression was observed for yield, fertility and udder health traits. For yield traits and based on pedigree, inbreeding on recent generations was more harmful than inbreeding on distant generations and there was evidence of purging. Across all traits, long and short ROH contributed to inbreeding depression. In future work, inbreeding depression and purging should be assessed in more detail at the genomic level, using higher density information and genomic time series.

Dataset Information

Genetic parameters and genomic breeding values for digital dermatitis in Holstein Friesian dairy cattle: host susceptibility, infectivity and the basic reproduction ratio.

Background

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Genetic parameters and genomic breeding values for digital dermatitis in Holstein Friesian dairy cattle: host susceptibility, infectivity and the basic reproduction ratio.

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