Genetic Association of PLAG1 Gene Variant 14:25015640G>T with Wither-Height in Pakistani Cattle

The cow is one of the most valuable domesticated animals, producing milk, meat, fiber, hide and manure to serve humanity. Particularly, first two production traits are positively correlated with the physical characteristics of the animals e.g., wither-height, body size and skeletal frame. Objectives: The PLAG1 is one of the many genes that has been significanlt associated with the aforementioned trait in many livestock and human species, so, genetic association of the 14:25015640G>T variant is being investigated in the current study. Methods: Genotyping of a total 50 cattles was conducted using ARMS-PCR technique followed by statistical hypothesis testing of the aforementioned variant using PLINK data analysis toolset. Results: Our findings depicted 24% of the sampled Pakistani cow population is homozygous wild-type for (GG), 12% homozygous-mutant (TT), while 64% found heterozygous (GT). Subject samples were obeying Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) with . Similarly, Chi-square association was also observed significant -3 with minor-allele frequency of 0.60 and 0.28 in heighted (cases) and control cohorts respectively. Additionally, a positive odds-ratio of 3.85 is also evident that the subject variant is under-selection and showing the tendency of the mutant allele almost 4-times higher in cases vs control groups. Conclusions: This pilot scale study would be helpful to gain genetic insight of the subject variant in our sampled cow, however further functional studies with larger sample size is needed for validation and subsequent results can be disseminated to improve this valued trait of the indigenous cows for gaining maximum milk and meat production from this esteemed species.