Latest research from Agriculture Victoria scientists has revealed that body stature in cattle is controlled by some of the same key genes which control body height in humans.
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Agriculture Victoria researcher Dr Hans Daetwyler said the latest discovery was crucial to extending the current understanding of the bovine genome.
“In Australia, we already have a system in place for sophisticated cattle genetics. In recent years, we have improved the reliability of breeding values for dairy cattle, and implemented complex traits including fertility and heat tolerance,” Dr Daetwyler said.
“Height is a well-studied and complex trait in genetics. However, this research is the largest-scale study to investigate the genetic basis for height, or body stature in cattle.
“In some mammals height is regulated by variants in a small number of genes. However, this research found that the genetic architecture of stature in cattle is similar to that of humans, with variants in thousands of genes – and substantially the same set of genes.
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The latest findings have ‘far reaching implications’, increasing knowledge in bovine traits and also highlights the importance of studying their genetics to further understand the inheritance of the human genome.
The research is part of a paper that has been published in the Nature Genetics journal and is titled Meta-analysis of genome wide association studies for cattle stature identifies common genes that regulate body size in mammals.
