LEP and SCD polymorphisms are associated with milk somatic cell count, electrical conductivity and pH values in Holstein cows

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine LEP-Sau3AI, SCD-Fnu4HI, NR1H3-HpyCH4IV and FABP4-HinII gene polymorphisms and to investigate the association between these SNPs and somatic cell count (SCC), electrical conductivity (EC) and pH in Holstein cow milk. LEP-Sau3AI polymorphism found associated with SCC (p < 0.01), EC (p < 0.01) and pH (p < 0.05). LEP-Sau3AI-BB genotype resulted with higher SCC, EC and pH compared to other genotypes. SCD-Fnu4HI polymorphism showed differences in genotypes for EC (p < 0.05) and pH (p ≤ 0.05) traits. While the highest EC value was found in SCD-Fnu4HI-CT genotype, the highest milk pH was found in genotype TT. In addition, NR1H3-HpyCH4IV genotypes was found the only associated with pH (p < 0.05) among all studied phenotypes. Based on the present findings, it was concluded that LEP and SCD genes could be used in breeding programs for improved SCC, EC and pH values in Holstein dairy cows.

Keywords:

• LEP
• SCD
• milk quality traits
• genetic polymorphism
• dairy cattle

Acknowledgments

Authors are indebted to Saray Farm Dairy Operations Co. (Kayseri) for their help during experiments. The authors are also grateful to Dr. Zeki Gokalp (Certified English Translator and an expert in Biosystems Engineering) for his critical reading and syntactic corrections of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by Erciyes University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit under grant number [FCD 2013/4640].