Journal article
The use of mid-infrared spectra to map genes affecting milk composition
A Benedet, PN Ho, R Xiang, S Bolormaa, M De Marchi, ME Goddard, JE Pryce
JOURNAL OF DAIRY SCIENCE | ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC | Published : 2019
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of using mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy analysis of milk samples to increase the power and precision of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for milk composition and to better distinguish linked quantitative trait loci (QTL). To achieve this goal, we analyzed phenotypic data of milk composition traits, related MIR spectra, and genotypic data comprising 626,777 SNP on 5,202 Holstein, Jersey, and crossbred cows. We performed a conventional GWAS on protein, lactose, fat, and fatty acid concentrations in milk, a GWAS on individual MIR wavenumbers, and a partial least squares regression (PLS), which is equivalent to a multi-trait GWAS, e..
View full abstractGrants
Awarded by Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects funding scheme
Funding Acknowledgements
The genotype and mid-infrared spectral data were obtained as part of the MIRforProfit project "Integrating very large genomic and milk mid-infrared data to improve profitability of dairy cows," funded by the Australian Government Department of Agriculture (Canberra, Australia) as part of the Rural R&D for Profit programme. The authors thank DairyBio project, funded by Dairy Australia (Melbourne, Australia), the Gardiner Foundation (Melbourne, Australia), and Agriculture Victoria (Melbourne, Australia) for supporting this research. The first author, Anna Benedet, completed this research while on sabbatical at Agriculture Victoria; Fondazione Ing. Aldo Gini (University of Padova, Italy) is gratefully acknowledged for financial support. Michael E. Goddard and Ruidong Xiang are supported by the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects funding scheme (DP160101056).