Application of a posteriori granddaughter and modified granddaughter designs to determine Holstein haplotype effects.

A posteriori and modified granddaughter designs were applied to determine haplotype effects for Holstein bulls and cows with BovineSNP50 [~50,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP); Illumina Inc., San Diego, CA] genotypes. The a posteriori granddaughter design was applied to 52 sire families, each with ≥100 genotyped sons with genetic evaluations based on progeny tests. For 33 traits (milk, fat, and protein yields; fat and protein percentages; somatic cell score; productive life; daughter pregnancy rate; heifer and cow conception rates; service-sire and daughter calving ease; service-sire and daughter stillbirth; 18 conformation traits; and net merit), the analysis was applied to the autosomal segment with the SNP with the greatest effect in the genomic evaluation of each trait. All traits except 2 had a within-family haplotype effect. The same design was applied with the genetic evaluations of sons corrected for SNP effects associated with chromosomes besides the one under analysis. The number of within-family contrasts was 166 without adjustment and 211 with adjustment. Of the 52 bulls analyzed, 36 had BovineHD (high density; Illumina Inc.) genotypes that were used to test for concordance between sire quantitative trait loci and SNP genotypes; complete concordance was not obtained for any effects. Of the 31 traits with effects from the a posteriori granddaughter design, 21 were analyzed with the modified granddaughter design. Only sires with a contrast for the a posteriori granddaughter design and ≥200 granddaughters with a record usable for genetic evaluation were included. Calving traits could not be analyzed because individual cow evaluations were not computed. Eight traits had within-family haplotype effects. With respect to milk and fat yields and fat percentage, the results on Bos taurus autosome (BTA) 14 corresponded to the hypothesis that a missense mutation in the diacylglycerol O-acyltransferase 1 (DGAT1) gene is the main causative mutation, although other polymorphisms in that gene also modify fat yield and percentage. The positive allele for protein concentration was less frequent, which indicated that selection on that locus could be effective. Although the results can be used to determine causative polymorphisms for most of the analyzed traits, complete DNA sequencing of most of the analyzed sires probably will be required.