Detection of structural variants in zebu cattle using next generation sequencing data

Abstract

Taurine (Bos tauru) and zebu (Bos indicus) cattle have established a close relationship with humans about ten thousand years ago when they were domesticated. Bovine milk and meat are very important for the nutrition and subsistence of billions of people. While zebu is extremely adapted to (sub-)tropical climates and resistant to infectious and parasitic diseases, taurine cattle are more productive, adapted to temperate climates, and susceptible to diseases. These phenotypic differences can be partially explained by divergence in their DNA sequences. Particularly, Copy Number Variation (CNV) is a type of genetic variation capable of producing direct phenotypic differences between animals. CNV consists of DNA duplications or deletions that span few to millions of nucleotides. CNV mapping in zebu using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) is an interesting approach to search for genetic variants related to bovine adaption to heat and resistance to pathogens. Therefore, this project proposes the detection of CNVs in zebu genomes using NGS data. The data that will be used in this project were obtained from previous studies from our research group (Brazil), as well as from collaborators (Africa) and public repositories (Pakistan).