Milk protein polymorphisms and casein haplotypes in Butana cattle

Butana is a Bos indicus dairy cattle breed that is well adapted to the local environment of Sudan. The breed has been gradually declining in number due to breed substitution. Therefore, conservation and improvement strategies are required to maintain this breed. The aim of the present study was to assess genetic variation that is characteristic for Butana cattle in the milk protein genes CSN1S1, CSN2, CSN1S2, CSN3, LALBA, and LGB. In a first step, genomic DNA of five unrelated individuals was comparatively sequenced across all exon and flanking sequences. Ninety-three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified in Butana cattle compared with the Bos taurus reference sequence at Ensembl. We confirmed the recently identified protein variants CSN2*J, CSN2*L, and LALBA*E. Fifty-two SNPs in non-coding regions are novel. Among the novel SNPs, five are located in promoter regions, three of them are in putative transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) of the CSN1S2 promoter. Fifteen SNPs potentially affect miRNA target sites. In a second step, 50 unrelated Butana cattle were genotyped. This allowed deriving haplotypes for the casein gene cluster on BTA6. The most frequent haplotype was CSN1S1*C-CSN2*A ² -CSN1S2*A-CSN3*A (C-A ² -A-A, frequency 0.1546). Considering the newly identified CSN1S2 promoter variants, the most frequent haplotype was C-A ² -TTC-A-A (0.1046), with TTC as the promoter variant. The information on protein and promoter variants can be used for the development of conservation and breeding strategies for this local breed.