The Bovine Heritage of Yaks
Though placid enough to be managed by humans, yaks are robust enough to survive at 4000 meters altitude. Genomic analyses by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen (LMU) researchers show that yak domestication began several millennia ago and was promoted by repeated crosses with cattle.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons/4028mdk09
In collaboration with Dr. Aurélien Capitan of the Université Paris-Saclay, Dr. Stefan Krebs of the Laboratory for Functional Genome Analysis at LMU‘s Gene Center and colleagues from other European, American and Mongolian institutions, Medugorac has mapped the distribution of cattle genes in the yak genome. “Many of the genetic variants in the yak that can be traced back to cattle are found at gene loci that are known to play roles in the development and function of the nervous system.
In the course of the study, the researchers identified a gene variant in Mongolian cattle and yaks that is responsible for the loss of horns. “We were able to show that this variant had been introduced into yaks from the domesticated Mongolian Turano cattle long ago,” Medugorac says. Lack of horns (known as ‘polledness’) is, however, only one of the traits with which yak breeders attempted to tame the ferocious temper of the yaks.
Interestingly, the polled variant in the Mongolian Turano cattle differs from the mutations known to be responsible for polledness in European cattle, which had previously been molecularly characterized by Medugorac’s group in 2012 and 2014. These findings are already being exploited by breeders worldwide to select for polled cattle in order to avoid the painful procedure of dehorning.
Citation: I. Medugorac et al.: Whole-genome analysis of introgressive hybridization and characterization of the bovine legacy of Mongolian yaks. In: Nature Genetics 2017
Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/2017/02/the-bovine-heritage-of-yaks.html
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