Evaluation of CD109, PCP4 and SEMA3D genes for their association with Ovine Johne’s disease in Turkish sheep

Abstract

Johne’s disease is a chronic, contagious, zoonotic disease that affects numerous species including livestock and sometimes humans. The disease is globally distributed in sheep populations and caused by Mycobacterium avium Subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP). A previous genome-wide association study identified single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers associated with OJD serostatus in CD109, PCP4, and SEMA3D genes. Our aim was to evaluate the same markers for association with OJD seroprevalence in Turkish sheep in a retrospective matched case-control study. The serological status for OJD in 1801 sheep was determined for four native and four composite breeds from three research flocks. One hundred eleven matched case-control pairs were constructed according to breed type and age from 1750 comingled ewes reared in the same environment. A Single Nucleotide Primer Extension (SNuPE) assay was designed to genotype PCP4-Intron 1, PCP4-3’UTR, SEMA3D, CD109-intron 2 and CD109-intron 8 markers and a McNemar’s test was performed on the matched pairs. An association with these five markers was not detected with the OJD serostatus in Turkish sheep (power of detection, 0.95; odds ratio >3; McNemar’s p < .05). Thus, a wider search may be needed to identify any major underlying genetic risk factors for OJD in Turkish sheep.

Keywords:

• Paratuberculosis
• Ovine Johne’s disease
• genetic association
• disease susceptibility

Ethical approval

All animal procedures in the study were reviewed and approved by the local ethics committee of Sheep Breeding and Research Institute (Approval Number: 1282412).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

Analyzed genotype data of the study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been funded by the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, General Directorate of Agricultural Research and Policies (Project number: TAGEM/HAYSÜD/15/A01/P02/02-02).