Plant & Animal Genomes XV Conference

January 13-17, 2007
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Genetic Studies Of Coat Colors And Length In Highland Cattle

Tom G Berryere¹ , Ahmad Oulmouden² , Sheila M Schmutz¹

¹  Department of Animal and Poultry Science, University of Saskatchewan, 51 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5A8, Canada

²  Unite de Genetique Moleculaire Animale, UMR 1061-INRA/Universite de Limoges, Limoges, France

Highland Cattle are considered to be an ancient breed with long horns and long hair coat. Fibroblast growth factor 5 (FGF5) has recently been reported to cause hair length differences in domestic dogs (Housley & Venta 2006). We obtained the full coding sequence from cattle with short to medium length hair and found both transcripts (Exon 1-2-3 and Exon 1-3), as expected. We likewise obtained genomic sequence for each of the 3 exons from Highland cattle and observed no differences in any of the 3 exons or adjacent flanking regions. Therefore it seems unlikely that FGF5 causes the hair length difference observed in Highland cattle compared to most other Bos taurus breeds.
Mutations in PMEL17 have been reported to be associated with dilute colors in Charolais (Oulmouden, 2003) and Simmental cattle (Hecht and Campbell 2005). We have studied Highland cattle of several coat colors and our data suggests that many of the coat colors observed can be explained by the MC1R genotype and a 3 bp deletion in exon 1 of PMEl17 which eliminates a leucine residue. Cattle with an E^D allele are dun when heterozygous for this deletion and silver dun when homozygous. Cattle which have only E⁺ or e alleles are red when homozygous for the normal sequence, yellow when heterozygous for this deletion and cream/white when homozygous for the deletion. Brindle is another common color in Highlands and all brindle cattle that had red and black striping, had at least one copy of E⁺and no copies of the deletion.