Identification of New Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Potentially Related to Small Ruminant Lentivirus Infection...

Small ruminant lentivirus (SRLV) infections are spread in the flocks of sheep and goats all over the world, causing economic loss. Although only a fraction of infected animals develop disease symptoms, all of them may shed the virus, causing uncontrolled spread of the infection. Antibodies against the virus can be detected in the blood of infected animals and are the main marker of infection. Additionally, in most infected animals, proviral DNA can also be detected, but at different levels. Due to the lack of treatment or vaccines, the most effective strategy to prevent SRLV infections are control programmes introduced by several countries based on the elimination of seropositive individuals from the flock. An alternative approach, which has currently become the rationale, is an identification of host factors which may predispose certain individuals or breeds to resistance or susceptibility to small ruminant lentivirus infection. In our work, attention was paid to goats of the Carpathian breed infected with SRLV. Available RNA-seq results from the blood of 12 goats with a determined level of SRLV proviral load were used to analyse single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) by the variant calling method. Six SNPs within five genes (POU2AF1, BCAT2, TMEM154, PARP14, UBASH3A) were selected for genotyping to determine their association with the level of small ruminant lentivirus proviral DNA in a group of 60 goats. Interestingly, in seronegative individuals, only the TT genotype of the PARP14 gene was observed, while the TMEM154 CC genotype was found only in seropositive goats. Both genes may be considered potential markers for resistance/susceptibility to SRLV infection. In contrast, polymorphisms identified in POU2AF1 and UBASH3A genes seemed to be deleterious for respective protein functions; therefore, these genes are less likely to be recognised as resistance/susceptibility markers of SRLV infection.