Beef cattle

Genome-wide association study for mouth scores in Bos indicus x Bos taurus crossbred cows at least 10 years of age

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Abstract

Loss of incisors in older cows affects their ability to graze forage leading to malnutrition, a reduced productive life, and removal from the herd. The objective of this study was to identify genome-wide associations for mouth scores in Bos indicus x Bos taurus crossbred females at least 10 yr of age. Records were available for females at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center in McGregor, Texas from the F2 to F5 generations of a Nellore-Angus cross population. Mouth scores (solid, short solid, weak, broke, popcorn, smooth) are recorded when calves are weaned for each female 10 yr of age or older. After filtering for the most recent score for each cow that also had genotypes there were 199 records. We modeled mouth score as an ordinal trait; a female received a score of 1 if she had solid or short solid teeth, 2 if she had weak, broke, or popcorn teeth, and 3 if she was smooth mouth. Phenotypes were preadjusted for the fixed effects of generation and birth year-season within generation. Resultant residuals and imputed high density SNP genotypes with age at scoring as a covariate were used for GWAS applying the univariate procedures of GEMMA. Significant associations were identified on bovine chromosome 5 at 109 Mb based on the ARS-UCD1.2 bovine assembly. Within this region SRY-box transcription factor 10 (SOX10) is functional candidate gene.

Keywords: 2026

How to Cite:

Bari, J., Petrich, E., Sanchez Ramos, L. & Gill, C., (2026) “Genome-wide association study for mouth scores in Bos indicus x Bos taurus crossbred cows at least 10 years of age”, World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production Digital Archive 2026(1): 2295955. doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/wcgalp.24384

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