Putative Causal Variants Are Enriched in Annotated Functional Regions From Six Bovine Tissues

Abstract

Genetic variants which affect complex traits (causal variants) are thought to be found in functional regions of the genome. Identifying causal variants would be useful for predicting complex trait phenotypes in dairy cows, however, functional regions are poorly annotated in the bovine genome. Functional regions can be identified on a genome-wide scale by assaying for post-translational modifications to histone proteins (histone modifications) and proteins interacting with the genome (e.g., transcription factors) using a method called Chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (ChIP-seq). In this study ChIP-seq was performed to find functional regions in the bovine genome by assayin..