Han Haige, Bryan Kenneth, Shiraigol Wunierfu, Bai Dongyi, Zhao Yiping, Bao Wuyingga, Yang Siqin, Zhang Wengang, MacHugh David E, Dugarjaviin Manglai, Hill Emmeline W
UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland.
College of Animal Science, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, P.R. China.
J Hered. 2019 Dec 17;110(7):769-781. doi: 10.1093/jhered/esz032.
The Mongolian horse is one of the oldest extant horse populations and although domesticated, most animals are free-ranging and experience minimal human intervention. As an ancient population originating in one of the key domestication centers, the Mongolian horse may play a key role in understanding the origins and recent evolutionary history of horses. Here we describe an analysis of high-density genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data in 40 globally dispersed horse populations (n = 895). In particular, we have focused on new results from Chinese Mongolian horses (n = 100) that represent 5 distinct populations. These animals were genotyped for 670K SNPs and the data were analyzed in conjunction with 35K SNP data for 35 distinct breeds. Analyses of these integrated SNP data sets demonstrated that the Chinese Mongolian populations were genetically distinct from other modern horse populations. In addition, compared to other domestic horse breeds, the Chinese Mongolian horse populations exhibited relatively high genomic diversity. These results suggest that, in genetic terms, extant Chinese Mongolian horses may be the most similar modern populations to the animals originally domesticated in this region of Asia. Chinese Mongolian horse populations may therefore retain ancestral genetic variants from the earliest domesticates. Further genomic characterization of these populations in conjunction with archaeogenetic sequence data should be prioritized for understanding recent horse evolution and the domestication process that has led to the wealth of diversity observed in modern global horse breeds.
蒙古马是现存最古老的马种之一，尽管已被驯化，但大多数马匹仍自由放养，很少受到人类干预。作为起源于关键驯化中心之一的古老马种，蒙古马可能在理解马的起源和近期进化历史方面发挥关键作用。在此，我们描述了对全球40个马种群（n = 895）的高密度全基因组单核苷酸多态性（SNP）数据的分析。特别是，我们重点关注了来自中国蒙古马（n = 100）的新结果，这些中国蒙古马代表了5个不同的种群。这些马匹针对67万个SNP进行了基因分型，并将数据与35个不同品种的3.5万个SNP数据结合进行分析。对这些整合的SNP数据集的分析表明，中国蒙古马种群在基因上与其他现代马种群不同。此外，与其他家马品种相比，中国蒙古马种群表现出相对较高的基因组多样性。这些结果表明，从遗传学角度来看，现存的中国蒙古马可能是与最初在亚洲该地区驯化的马匹最相似的现代种群。因此，中国蒙古马种群可能保留了最早驯化的马匹的祖先遗传变异。为了理解近期马的进化以及导致现代全球马品种中观察到的丰富多样性的驯化过程，应优先对这些种群进行进一步的基因组特征分析，并结合古遗传学序列数据。
