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The genetic improvement of animals can make a significant contribution to this goal of sustainability. A first step may be to identify the genes and their variants that influence the various traits associated with meat production. Specific genetic analyses, usually carried out within a given population of animals, can reveal regions of the genome containing these genes. The results of these analyses can then be combined in a "meta-analysis" pooling data from several populations, increasing the power of detection of the genes involved and better resolution in localization. This approach leads to more complete and precise results, and therefore to better identification of the genes and gene variants associated with the expression of traits of interest.   

As part of the European BovReg project, meta-analyses have been carried out to gain a better understanding of the genetic bases of five groups of essential traits in cattle production (milk and meat production, health, feed efficiency and reproduction). With regard to meat production, INRAE researchers and partners from Switzerland, Germany and Canada worked together to gather data from over 50,000 animals from 15 purebred and crossbred populations, taking into account 30 million variants in the bovine genome. These meta-analyses, carried out on an unprecedented scale for traits related to growth, morphology and carcass characteristics, identified numerous genes and genetic variants associated with these traits. In particular, this approach has revealed regions of the genome not identified in previous population-based analyses, enabling us to better target the genes and genetic variants involved. Some of these genes were already known, such as the myostatin gene, certain mutations of which are responsible for muscle hypertrophy. But the meta-analysis also revealed the effect of other genes previously little known or unknown, such as a gene encoding a protein which potentially regulates the expression of a large number of genes, and which has strong effects on many traits associated with beef production.

These discoveries are helping to better identify the genes that influence meat production traits in cattle. They pave the way for future research into improving production efficiency through animal selection. More generally, they show that, by making it possible to combine large datasets, international collaborations can accelerate the production of knowledge, in this case on the genetic determinism of traits important for moving towards more sustainable beef production.

Contact :

• Marie- Pierre Sanchez

Ref. : Sanchez M.-P., Tribout T., Kadri N., Chitneedi P.K., Maak S., Hoze C., Boussaha M., Croiseau P., Philippe R., Spengeler M., Kuhn C., Wang Y., Li C., Plastow G., Pausch H., Boichard D. Sequence-based meta-analyses for beef production traits. Genetics Selection Evolution, 55:70. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-023-00848-5