Weighted single step GWAS reveals genomic regions associated with economic traits in Murrah buffaloes

The objective of the present study was to identify genomic regions influencing economic traits in Murrah buffaloes using weighted single step Genome Wide Association Analysis (WssGWAS). Data on 2000 animals, out of which 120 were genotyped using a double digest Restriction site Associated DNA (ddRAD) sequencing approach. The phenotypic data were collected from NDRI, India, on growth traits, viz., body weight at 6M (month), 12M, 18M and 24M, production traits like 305D (day) milk yield, lactation length (LL) and dry period (DP) and reproduction traits like age at first calving (AFC), calving interval (CI) and first service period (FSP). The biallelic genotypic data consisted of 49353 markers post-quality check. The heritability estimates were moderate to high, low to moderate, low for growth, production, reproduction traits, respectively. Important genomic regions explaining more than 0.5% of the total additive genetic variance explained by 30 adjacent SNPs were selected for further analysis of candidate genes. In this study, 105 genomic regions were associated with growth, 35 genomic regions with production and 42 window regions with reproduction traits. Different candidate genes were identified in these genomic regions, of which important are OSBPL8, NAP1L1 for growth, CNTNAP2 for production and ILDR2, TADA1 and POGK for reproduction traits.