Life Sciences & Biotechnology
Title : | Evaluation of the impact of mitochondrial changes on milk production traits of indigenous cattle |
Area of research : | Life Sciences & Biotechnology |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Sadeesh E.M, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Haryana |
Timeline Start Year : | 2023 |
Timeline End Year : | 2025 |
Contact info : | sadeeshcirb@gmail.com |
Details
Executive Summary : | Lactation in dairy cattle is an energy-demanding process, and energy demand can be as high as during the gestation period. Lactation meets its elevated energy demand by increasing feed intake and metabolic changes in the tissues to ferry nutrients to the mammary gland for milk synthesis. Because mitochondria provide energy, mitochondrial changes affect lactation success and milk production. Dairy cattle's breeding focuses mostly on a mother's genetic makeup, but their mitochondrial genomes have a strong correlation with lactation performance since they support the energetic and substrate needs for milk production. On top of that, farm animals' production traits heavily influence the maternal effect. It has been widely reported that polymorphisms in mitochondrial coding and non-coding regions are associated with various productive and reproductive traits in farm animals. It has been shown previously that cytoplasmic lineage effects explain significantly the differences in milk, fat, fat percentage, milk corrected for fat, milk net return, and days open for breeding in exotic dairy cattle. Moreover, the published report revealed that cytoplasmic effects account for 2% of milk production variability and 3.5% of milk fat variation. Similarly, other published reports on exotic dairy cattle have found even higher proportions of phenotypic variation in milk and milk components to be explained by the cytoplasmic effect. In indigenous cattle, we have not adequately recognized the potential impact of the mitochondrial genome. At the same time, we are not aware of the impact of the mitochondrial genome on milk production traits in commercially exploited indigenous cattle species. Therefore, this proposed project will adhere to a method of genetic evaluation of indigenous cattle that involves mitochondrial DNA copy number analysis, the sequencing of the mitochondrial DNA genome of said dairy cattle, and linking the expression of milk production traits in said dairy cattle to mtDNA content and polymorphisms within the mitochondrial DNA. The findings from this proposed study may provide new insight into how mitochondrial dysfunction impacts milk synthesis. This may highlight the importance of mtDNA selection for breeding purposes, increasing milk production, as well as genetic makeup affecting production traits. The outcome of this study may also allow the prediction of efficient milk-producing animals from different cytoplasmic lineages with favorable productive traits. In addition, it will reduce the generation interval through genomic selection and enable the identification of adulterations in indigenous cow's milk with other farm animals' milk by utilizing mtDNA-based approaches. |
Total Budget (INR): | 29,53,800 |
Organizations involved