Identification of candidate genes and SNPs related to cattle temperament using a GWAS analysis coupled with an interacting network analysis

The objective of this study was to identify in Angus and Brangus breed animals with extreme temperament, measured as exit velocity, genomic regions and candidate genes associated with bovine temperament. The population was genotyped with the Genomic Profiler HD 150K chip and after the genome-wide association analysis, the SNPs rs133956611 (P=2.65 E-06) and rs81144933 (P=9.58 E-06) were associated with temperament. The mapping analysis of the regions close to the SNP rs81144933 identified the SNCA (alpha-synuclein) and MMRN1 (multimerin-1) genes at 222.8 and 435.9 Kb downstream respectively, while for the rs133956611 loci the gene GPRIN3 (GPRIN family-member-3) was identified at 245.7 Kb upstream, all three genes are located on the BTA6 chromosome. The analysis of SNCA protein-protein interactions allowed the identification of the genes APP (β-amyloid precursor protein), PARK7 (parkinsonism-associated-deglycase), UCHL1 (ubiquitin-C-terminal-hydrolase-L1), PARK2 (parkin-RBRE3-ubiquitin-protein-ligase), and genes of the SLC family as candidates to be associated with bovine temperament. All these candidate genes and their interacting were resequenced, which allowed the discovery of new SNPs in the SNCA and APP genes. Of these, the SNPs located in introns 5, 8 and 11 of the APP gene affect splicing site motifs. These results indicate that SNCA and its interacting genes are candidates to be related to bovine temperament.