Single nucleotide polymorphisms in the bovine SLC2A12 and SLC5A1 glucose transporter genes – the effect on gene expression and milk traits of Holstein Friesian cows

Abstract

In this study, novel single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were found in the 5′-regulatory regions (promoters) of the bovine glucose transporter (GT) genes SLC2A12 and SLC5A1. These polymorphisms were shown to associate with certain milk production traits in HF cows, including milk yield, milk composition, and somatic cell count. It was shown that the SNP g.-671C > G (NC_037336.1: g.72224078C > G) in the SLC2A12 gene could be an effective marker of cattle production traits and that genotypes CC and CG are associated with the best productivity. The polymorphisms found in the SLC5A1 gene promoter also influenced milk production traits in HF cows, albeit to a lesser extent, and we propose that these polymorphisms could be useful as genetic markers for milk production traits in marker-assisted selection (MAS); however, this must be confirmed on larger populations of cattle. In addition, the presence of polymorphisms within promoter regions appears to affect the expression of GT genes in the cow mammary gland and modify transcription factor (TF) binding capacity.

Keywords:

• Cattle
• glucose transporters
• polymorphism
• milk traits

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Author contributions

LZ conceived the projects and performed the formal analysis. LZ and MO were responsible for the methodology. MO, BŻ, and ES performed the investigation. MO and LZ drafted the manuscript. LZ and EB reviewed and edited the manuscript. EB analyzed data statistically. LZ and EB visualized the data and supervised the study. All authors approved the manuscript.

Data availability statement

Data and materials are available upon request from the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Centre (NCN) of Poland under Grants 2012/05/B/NZ9/03425 (polymorphism searching, gene expression study), 2014/13B/NZ9/02509 (association study).