What genes do Yakut and African cows have, but are absent from European ones?

Scientists from the Novosibirsk Institute of Cytology and Genetics (ICiG) and the Royal Veterinary College of London found out which genetic features made it possible to adapt to the cold of the northernmost cattle population, the Yakut cow, according to the ICG.

Yakut cows, including those living beyond the Arctic Circle and able to withstand temperatures of -70 ° C, have a unique gene pool and did not interbreed with other populations of cattle, yaks, bison and other closely related species, scientists have established.

They separated from the common ancestor of European cattle breeds about 5 thousand years ago. On this basis, scientists came to the conclusion that adaptation to the conditions of the Far North was formed at the expense of the own gene pool of Yakut cattle. At the same time, a large number of genetic variants were found in the genome of Yakut cows, which are also found in the genomes of breeds from Africa and Asia, but are absent in European breeds of cattle.

The scientists hypothesized that these genetic variants most likely represent ancestral variants of genes that were lost in European breeds due to selective breeding for intensive MILK and MEAT production. However, the preservation of precisely these variants allowed Yakut cattle to adapt to changing environmental conditions and extreme cold, and African cattle to extreme heat.

The study also identified one evolutionary event unique only to Yakut cattle: the presence in each animal of a coding nucleotide substitution that had a large effect on the properties of the corresponding protein. This substitution was absent in other breeds of cattle. At the same time, exactly the same mutation probably allowed a number of other species of mammals to acquire the ability to hibernate, fall into a stupor in the cold, be cold-resistant or deep diving, the press release says.

“The breakthrough significance of this work is that we now know that convergent evolution at the nucleotide level also occurs in animal breeds created by man. This means that individual breeds can acquire new properties that are not characteristic of their species as a whole, explained the HEAD of the study, Professor Denis Larkin from the Royal Veterinary College.

The ICG press service called this study the first practical step towards breeding cold-resistant livestock breeds. The work was published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.