Understanding how evolutionary forces relating to climate have shaped the patterns of genetic variation within and between species is a fundamental pursuit in biology. Iranian indigenous chickens ...have evolved genetic adaptations to their local environmental conditions, such as hot and arid regions. In the present study, we provide a population genome landscape of genetic variations in 72 chickens representing nine Iranian indigenous ecotypes (Creeper, Isfahan, Lari, Marand, Mashhad, Naked neck, Sari, Shiraz and Yazd) and two commercial lines (White Leghorn and Arian). We further performed comparative population genomics to evaluate the genetic basis underlying variation in the adaptation to hot climate and immune response in indigenous chicken ecotypes. To detect genomic signatures of adaptation, we applied nucleotide diversity (θπ) and F
statistical measurements, and further analyzed the results to find genomic regions under selection for hot adaptation and immune response-related traits.
By generating whole-genome data, we assessed the relationship between the genetic diversity of indigenous chicken ecotypes and their genetic distances to two different commercial lines. The results of genetic structure analysis revealed clustering of indigenous chickens in agreement with their geographic origin. Among all studied chicken groups, the highest level of linkage disequilibrium (LD) (~ 0.70) was observed in White Leghorn group at marker pairs distance of 1 Kb. The results from admixture analysis demonstrated evidence of shared ancestry between Arian individuals and indigenous chickens, especially those from the north of the country. Our search for potential genomic regions under selection in indigenous chicken ecotypes revealed several immune response and heat shock protein-related genes, such as HSP70, HSPA9, HSPH1, HSP90AB1 and PLCB4 that have been previously unknown to be involved in environmental-adaptive traits. In addition, we found some other candidate loci on different chromosomes probably related with hot adaptation and immune response-related traits.
The work provides crucial insights into the structural variation in the genome of Iranian indigenous chicken ecotypes, which up to now has not been genetically investigated. Several genes were identified as candidates for drought, heat tolerance, immune response and other phenotypic traits. These candidate genes may be helpful targets for understanding of the molecular basis of adaptation to hot environmental climate and as such they should be used in chicken breeding programs to select more efficient breeds for desert climate.
Pistacia genus belongs to the flowering plants in the cashew family and contains at least 11 species. The whole-genome resequencing data of different species from Pistacia genus are described herein. ...The data reported here will be useful for better understand the adaptive evolution, demographic history, genetic diversity, population structure, and domestication of pistachio.
Genomic DNA was isolated from fresh leaves and used to construct libraries with insert size of 350 bp. Sequence libraries were made and sequenced on the Illumina Hiseq 4000 platform to produce 150 bp paired-end reads. A total number of 4,851,118,730 billion reads (ranging from 33,305,900 to 34,990,618 reads per sample) were created across all samples. We produced a total of 727.67 Gbp data which have been deposited in the Genome Sequence Archive (GSA) database with the Accession of CRA000978. All of the data are also available as the sequence read archive (SRA) format in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) with identifier of SRP189222, mirroring our deposited data in GSA.
Animal domestication, climate changes over time, and artificial selection have played significant roles in shaping the genome structure of various animal species, including cattle. These processes ...have led to the emergence of several indigenous cattle breeds with distinct genetic characteristics. This study focused on unraveling the genetic diversity and identifying candidate genomic regions in eight indigenous cattle breeds of Iran. The data consisted of ∼777 962 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of 89 animals from Iranian indigenous cattle scattered throughout the country. We employed various methods, including integrated haplotype score,
, and cross-population composite likelihood ratio, to conduct a genome scan for detecting selection signals within and between cattle populations. Average observed heterozygosity across the populations was 0.36, with a range of 0.32-0.40. In addition, negative and low rates of inbreeding (FIS) in the populations were observed. The genome-wide analysis revealed several genomic regions that harbored candidate genes associated with production traits (e.g., MFSD1, TYW5, ADRB2, BLK, and CRTC3), adaptation to local environmental constraints (CACNA2D1, CXCL3, and GRO1), and coat color (DYM). Finally, the study of the reported quantitative trait loci (QTL) regions in the cattle genome demonstrated that the identified regions were associated with QTL related to important traits such as milk composition, body weight, daily gain, feed conversion, and residual feed intake. Overall, this study contributes to a better understanding of the genetic diversity and potential candidate genes underlying important traits in Iranian indigenous cattle breeds, which can inform future breeding and conservation efforts.
Understanding the genetic changes underlying phenotypic variation in sheep (Ovis aries) may facilitate our efforts towards further improvement. Here, we report the deep resequencing of 248 sheep ...including the wild ancestor (O. orientalis), landraces, and improved breeds. We explored the sheep variome and selection signatures. We detected genomic regions harboring genes associated with distinct morphological and agronomic traits, which may be past and potential future targets of domestication, breeding, and selection. Furthermore, we found non-synonymous mutations in a set of plausible candidate genes and significant differences in their allele frequency distributions across breeds. We identified PDGFD as a likely causal gene for fat deposition in the tails of sheep through transcriptome, RT-PCR, qPCR, and Western blot analyses. Our results provide insights into the demographic history of sheep and a valuable genomic resource for future genetic studies and improved genome-assisted breeding of sheep and other domestic animals.
Background
The identification of genomic regions under selection can potentially permit a better understanding of the biology of the specific phenotypes which are useful for the development of tools ...designed to increase selection efficiency.
Objective
The aim of this study was to detect any traces of recent selection signatures as well as to identify corresponding genes and QTLs underlying these selection signatures in Sarabi cattle.
Methods
Samples from 20 animals were genotyped for 777,962 SNPs across the genome using the Illumina BovineHD BeadChip. Selection signatures analysis was performed using the integrated haplotype score (iHS) methodology.
Results
A total of eight significant regions (
P
< 0.0001) of possible recent selection signatures were detected on BTA14 and BTA17. In addition, nine genes were identified in regions harboring selection signatures, such as
KCNQ3, HHLA1, OC90, EFR3A, ADCY8, ASAP1, TMEM132B
, and
TMEM132C
. Study of the reported QTLs in these regions of the bovine genome has showed that they are associated with important traits such as milk, reproduction and production traits.
Conclusion
The results revealed multiple genomic regions as well as multiple new genes under positive selection on BTA14 and BTA17. Moreover, candidate selected regions that overlap with QTL reported in the cattle QTL database provided additional evidence for the significance of the detected regions under selection. This study provides a foundation for detailed analysis of the identified putative selection signatures in the cattle genome particularly of the indigenous and locally-developed cattle breeds and provides an avenue for a well-structured breed improvement.
Pistachio (Pistacia vera), one of the most important commercial nut crops worldwide, is highly adaptable to abiotic stresses and is tolerant to drought and salt stresses.
Here, we provide a draft de ...novo genome of pistachio as well as large-scale genome resequencing. Comparative genomic analyses reveal stress adaptation of pistachio is likely attributable to the expanded cytochrome P450 and chitinase gene families. Particularly, a comparative transcriptomic analysis shows that the jasmonic acid (JA) biosynthetic pathway plays an important role in salt tolerance in pistachio. Moreover, we resequence 93 cultivars and 14 wild P. vera genomes and 35 closely related wild Pistacia genomes, to provide insights into population structure, genetic diversity, and domestication. We find that frequent genetic admixture occurred among the different wild Pistacia species. Comparative population genomic analyses reveal that pistachio was domesticated about 8000 years ago and suggest that key genes for domestication related to tree and seed size experienced artificial selection.
Our study provides insight into genetic underpinning of local adaptation and domestication of pistachio. The Pistacia genome sequences should facilitate future studies to understand the genetic basis of agronomically and environmentally related traits of desert crops.
The present research has estimated the additive and dominance genetic variances of genic and intergenic segments for average daily gain (ADG), backfat thickness (BFT) and pH of the semimembranosus ...dorsi muscle (PHS). Further, the predictive performance using additive and additive dominance models in a purebred Piétrain (PB) and a crossbred (Piétrain × Large White, CB) pig population was assessed. All genomic regions contributed equally to the additive and dominance genetic variations and lead to the same predictive ability that did not improve with the inclusion of dominance genetic effect and inbreeding in the models. Using all SNPs available, additive genotypic correlations between PB and CB performances for the three traits were high and positive (> 0.83) and dominance genotypic correlation was very inaccurate. Estimates of dominance genotypic correlations between all pairs of traits in both populations were imprecise but positive for ADG-BFT in CB and BFT-PHS in PB and CB with a high probability (> 0.98). Additive and dominance genotypic correlations between BFT and PHS were of different sign in both populations, which could indicate that genes contributing to the additive genetic progress in both traits would have an antagonistic effect when used for exploiting dominance effects in planned matings.
How do birds navigate their way? It is one of the interesting question about homing pigeons, however the genetic of navigation has reminded as a puzzle. Optic lobe, olfactory bulb, hippocampus and ...cere were collected for RNA sampling. The generated RNA-seq represent RNA resequencing data for racing homer (homing) pigeon and other rock pigeon breeds. The obtained data set can provide new insight about hippocampus role and GSR contribution to pigeon magnetoreception.
To investigate the navigation ability of rock pigeon breeds, 60 whole transcriptome sequence data sets related to homing pigeon, Shiraz tumblers, feral pigeons and Persian high flyers were obtained. RNA extraction was performed from three brain regions (optic lobe, olfactory bulb, hippocampus) and cere. Paired-end 150 bp short reads (Library size 350 bp) were sequenced by Illumina Hiseq 2000. In this way, about 342.1 Gbp and 130.3 Gb data were provided. The whole transcriptome data sets have been deposited at the NCBI SRA database (PRJNA532674). The submitted data set may play critical role to describe the mechanism of navigation ability of rock pigeon breeds.