INRA, UMR 1313 GABI, Jouy-en-Josas, [corrected] France.
PLoS One. 2010 Sep 30;5(9):e13038. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0013038.
Modern cattle originate from populations of the wild extinct aurochs through a few domestication events which occurred about 8,000 years ago. Newly domesticated populations subsequently spread worldwide following breeder migration routes. The resulting complex historical origins associated with both natural and artificial selection have led to the differentiation of numerous different cattle breeds displaying a broad phenotypic variety over a short period of time.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: This study gives a detailed assessment of cattle genetic diversity based on 1,121 individuals sampled in 47 populations from different parts of the world (with a special focus on French cattle) genotyped for 44,706 autosomal SNPs. The analyzed data set consisted of new genotypes for 296 individuals representing 14 French cattle breeds which were combined to those available from three previously published studies. After characterizing SNP polymorphism in the different populations, we performed a detailed analysis of genetic structure at both the individual and population levels. We further searched for spatial patterns of genetic diversity among 23 European populations, most of them being of French origin, under the recently developed spatial Principal Component analysis framework.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Overall, such high throughput genotyping data confirmed a clear partitioning of the cattle genetic diversity into distinct breeds. In addition, patterns of differentiation among the three main groups of populations--the African taurine, the European taurine and zebus--may provide some additional support for three distinct domestication centres. Finally, among the European cattle breeds investigated, spatial patterns of genetic diversity were found in good agreement with the two main migration routes towards France, initially postulated based on archeological evidence.
现代牛起源于约 8000 年前几次驯化事件中灭绝的野生原牛种群。随后，新驯化的牛群沿着饲养者的迁移路线在世界各地传播。由此产生的与自然和人工选择相关的复杂历史起源导致了许多不同牛品种的分化，这些品种在短时间内表现出广泛的表型多样性。
方法/主要发现：本研究基于来自世界各地的 47 个群体的 1121 个个体（特别关注法国牛）进行了详细的牛遗传多样性评估，这些个体在 44706 个常染色体 SNP 上进行了基因分型。分析的数据集中包括 296 个个体的新基因型，这些个体代表 14 个法国牛品种，这些个体与之前发表的三个研究中的可用基因型结合在一起。在对不同群体中的 SNP 多态性进行特征描述后，我们在个体和群体水平上对遗传结构进行了详细分析。我们还在最近开发的空间主成分分析框架下，在 23 个欧洲群体中寻找了遗传多样性的空间模式，其中大多数群体起源于法国。
结论/意义：总体而言，如此高通量的基因分型数据证实了牛的遗传多样性明显分为不同的品种。此外，三个主要群体——非洲野牛、欧洲野牛和印度野牛——之间的分化模式可能为三个不同的驯化中心提供了一些额外的支持。最后，在所研究的欧洲牛品种中，遗传多样性的空间模式与最初根据考古证据推断的法国的两个主要迁移路线吻合较好。
