Genome-wide association analyses identify single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with in vitro embryo cleavage and blastocyst rates in Holstein bulls

作者：Kimberly M Davenport, Kelsey Lockhart, Katy S Stoecklein, Robert D. Schnabel, Thomas E. Spencer, M. S. Ortega · 发表于：Journal of Dairy Science · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.3168/jds.2025-26496 · 被引用次数：3 · 研究领域：Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock、Genetic Mapping and Diversity in Plants and Animals、Reproductive Physiology in Livestock

Reproductive success is an essential component of profitable and sustainable dairy operations. Although selection for production traits such as milk yield has led to a decline in fertility in dairy cattle, strategies including assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer, as well as genomic selection for fertility traits, are being implemented to help mitigate this loss. Previous studies have identified genetic markers associated with fertility traits such as daughter pregnancy rate, conception rate, and interval to first conception. However, genetic markers associated with in vitro embryo development have yet to be explored. Therefore, this study aimed to identify genetic markers associated with in vitro embryo cleavage and blastocyst rates with the future goal of creating an index to select bulls with superior abilities to produce embryos in vitro. Rigorous in vitro fertilization trials identified Holstein bulls with divergent abilities to produce embryos that successfully cleave and develop into blastocysts in vitro. A total of 40 bulls with embryo cleavage and blastocyst rate phenotypes were whole-genome sequenced. Sequencing was performed on an Illumina platform with PE150 reads followed by cleaning, mapping to ARS-UCD1.2, variant calling with GATK HaplotypeCaller, and quality control following the 1000 Bulls Genomes Project best practices. Genome-wide association analyses identified 819 and 442 SNPs associated with embryo cleavag...