Genome wide mining of SNPs and INDELs through ddRAD sequencing in Sahiwal cattle

The study was conducted in Sahiwal cattle for genome wide identification and annotation of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and insertions and deletions (INDELs) in Sahiwal cattle. The double digest restriction-site associated DNA (ddRAD) sequencing, a reduced representation method was used for the identification of variants at nucleotide level. A total of 1,615,211 variants were identified at RD10 and Q30 consisting of 1,480,930 SNPs and 134,281 INDELs with respect to the Bos taurus reference genome. The SNPs were annotated for their location, impact and functional class. The SNPs identified in Sahiwal cattle were found to be associated with a total of 26,229 genes. A total of 1819 SNPs were annotated for 209 candidate genes associated with different production and reproduction traits. The variants identified in the present study may be useful to strengthen the existing bovine SNP chips for reducing the biasness over the taurine cattle breeds. The diversity analysis provides the insight of the genetic architecture of the Sahiwal population Studied. The large genetic variations identified at the nucleotide level provide ample scope for implementing an effective and efficient breed improvement programme for increasing the productivity of Sahiwal cattle.