Various workers have studied the polymorphism in the genome of livestock species by different molecular techniques like microsatellite markers, PCR-RFLP, sanger based direct sequencing
etc (Rajput et al., 2013; Singh et al., 2014; Kumar et al., 2017 and
Mishra et al., 2018). However, the SNP genotyping technique used in the present investigation is more accurate than the previous techniques due to more stringent quality control. The percentage of polymorphic loci in Kankrej (KN) and Hallikar (HK) breeds ranged from 22.22% to 55.56%; whereas in Ladakhi (LC) and Siri (SR) all the loci were polymorphic (100%). Thus, more polymorphism was observed in Ladakhi and Siri animals in comparision to Hallikar and Kankrej. The average % of polymorphic loci for all the breeds was 69.44±18.91. The genetic distance between KN and HK was highest (0.135) whereas; it was lowest between Ladakhi and Siri (0.066) (Table 1). The unbiased expected heterozygosity (H
e) varied from 0.086±0.057 to 0.423±0.035 among Kankrej and Ladakhi, indicating highest genetic diversity in Ladakhi and least diversity in Kankrej breed (Table 2a). Global F
ST value indicated that 14.3% variation was among these breeds (Table 2b). Locus 1, 2, 8 and 9 had more variation than other loci (26.5 to 15.7%). The F
IS values were highest in Siri (0.240±0.144) and lowest in Ladakhi (-0.398±0.045) breed. Principal coordinate analysis revealed 82.16% variation due to PCA1 and PCA2 (Fig 1). Various workers also reported that the majority of the variation can be accounted by PCA1 and PCA2
(Mishra et al., 2017). Breed differentiation by minor allele frequencies was studied by DMRT test using SAS software. It was observed that there were significant breed differences among these four breed at each loci (P<0.05). Further, group wise MAF were also different between High altitude and low altitude breeds (Table 3). On the basis of log-likelihood estimates 63% of the animals assigned to their self-population by these 9 SNP loci (Table 4).
EGLN2 (PHD1) is egl-9 family hypoxia inducible factor 2. It is one of the central HIF pathway genes. The hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) is a transcriptional complex that is involved in oxygen homeostasis. At normal oxygen levels, the subunit of HIF is targeted for degradation by prolyl hydroxylation
(Ivan et al., 2001). This gene encodes an enzyme responsible for this post-translational modification. Diseases associated with EGLN2 in humans include Hypoxia and Familial Isolated Hypoparathyroidism, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cancer, cardio vascular disease
etc.
(Ding et al., 2015; Cioffi et al., 2003 and
Zhang et al., 2019).
Higher F
ST values (0.221 to 0.265) were obtained among the breeds for SNP (loci1 and loci 2) lying in this genes. Moreover, minor allele Frequency (MAF) differences were lower in Ladakhi and Siri (Table 3) breeds of high altitude region in comparison to hot/low lying versus cold/high altitude breeds groups. Similar results were also obtained by other workers in which lower level of population differentiation was observed between Yak and Tibetan cattle and high level of population differentiation between Tibetan cattle and Zebu having strong signal of gene introgression on chromosome 18
(Wu et al., 2018). This indicates that the favorable adaptive allele for EGLN2 (PHD1) genes might have accumulated in the breeds of high altitude region to overcome the stressful hypoxic conditions prevailing in this region. For EGLN3 (PHD3), F
ST value for the loci 3-7 was about 0.94 and MAF was highest (0.318) for Ladakhi and least for Kankrej.
For EPAS1 (HIF2A) F
ST varied from 0.15-0.177 (Loci 8-9) and MAF was highest for Ladakhi and least for Hallikar. This again indicates that the hypoxia related genes showed population differentiation on the basis of high altitude versus low land region breeds.
Huerta-Sánchez et al., (2014) also observed that selected haplotypes in EPAS1 genes are only found in Denisovan and Tibetans population lying in high altitude region and not in other populations.
The genetics variants identified in the EPAS1 gene have been found to be associated with high-altitude pulmonary hypertension (HAPH) in cattle which leads to brisket disease
(Newman et al., 2015) as its expression is extremely higher in lung than other tissues
(Wu et al., 2015). Moreover, some variants are also associated with the differences in hemoglobin concentrations in Tibetans (
Homo Sepiens), Yak (
Bos grunniens) and Tibetian mastiffs’ dog (
Canis familiaris) residing at high altitude
(Beall et al., 2010; Wu et al., 2015; Wen et al., 1998).
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are about 22-nt RNAs that mediate post-transcriptional gene repression (
Bartel, 2004). Hypoxia stimulates a distinct change in a specific group of miRNAs, termed hypoxamirs
(Nallamshetty et al., 2013). The hypoxamiRs are considered as potential candidates for diagnostic markers or therapeutic targets for better adaptation at high altitude. They bind with an Argonaute protein to form a silencing complex. miRNAs function as sequence-specific guides, directing the silencing complex to transcripts, primarily through Watson-Crick pairing between the miRNA seed (miRNA nucleotides 2-7) and complementary sites within the 3’ untranslated regions (3’UTRs) of target RNAs
(Lewis et al., 2005; Bartel 2009). 3’UTR regions are considered as the potential target for the binding of mi-RNAs Therefore, the hypoxia genes under investigation were analysed for their mi-RNA binding in the 3’UTR region by TargetScan software. The 3’UTR region of EGLN2 gene of cattle consists of 592 bp. At 433-440 positions, binding site for 2 mi-RNAs (bta-miR-23a and bta-miR-23b-3p) were observed and at 561-567 positions, 9 binding sites (bta-let-7d/g/i/f/c/b/e, 7a-5p, bta-miR-98) were observed which are broadly conserved among the vertebrates. This indicates that this gene might have been influenced by atleast 11 mi-RNAs for its expression. The 3'UTR region of EGLN3 gene consists of 1655 nt. For EGLN3, 5 binding sites (bta-miR-9-5p, bta-miR-142-5p, bta-miR-17-5p/20/93/106, bta-miR 122, bta-miR-218) broadly conserved among the vertebrates were observed. Moreover, this gene has two transcripts (ENST00000250457.3 of 1655 nt long 3’UTR and ENST00000547327.2 of 1972 nt long 3’UTR) due to the alternate splicing. ENST00000547327.2, transcript had no miRNA binding site which could be broadly conserved in the vertebrates. The presence of 5 intronic variations (loci 3-7) in this gene observed in our study might have affected the splicing process during the post transcriptional modifications. Similarly, 12 mi-RNA binding sites (Cow EPAS1: ENST00000263734.3; 3’UTR length: 2029) were observed in EPAS1 gene 3’UTR. Thus it is quite possible that the expression of these genes might have been influenced by the identified SNPs which could be responsible for the variation in the phenotypes related to hypoxia among the studied breeds. Altitude affects the biochemical profile of the cross-bred cattle (
Kumar and Kumar 2000). In comparision with the high altitude cross-bred cattle, haematological profile of native Ladakhi cattle is within the range of plain area cross bred cattle and Ladakhi cattle is well adapted to the prevalent high altitude stress conditions
(Kumari et al., 2020). The selection of favorable alleles of hypoxia related genes and their optimum expression in the specific tissues might be responsible for keeping their levels within the range in spite of stressful hypoxic conditions of high altitude.