Genetic variation in serum copper concentration in Angus cattle

2006 ◽  
Vol 82 (6) ◽  
pp. 799-803 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. Morris ◽  
N. C. Amyes ◽  
S. M. Hickey

AbstractFollowing the discovery of low serum copper (Cu) concentrations in 9-month-old beef calves at pasture in autumn (50% of animals had values <7·5 μmol/l), genetic variation in serum Cu concentration was studied in an experimental Angus herd in New Zealand, monitoring at intervals from about 7 to 17 months of age. The study was initiated in autumn when animals were supplemented with zinc (Zn) salts (to protect against liver injury from toxin-producing facial eczema spores on the pasture), and later in the production year after Cu supplementation but without Zn supplementation. Heritabilities of Cu concentration were estimated in 837 calves from six calf crops, the progeny of 47 sires, using restricted maximum likelihood procedures with an animal model. Correlations between Cu concentration and Zn concentration were also estimated, along with correlations between Cu concentration and 6-month, 9-month and yearling live weights. The heritability estimate for Cu concentration at all times outside the autumn Zn supplementation period was 0·28±0·08 (between-animal repeatability, 0·30±0·05), and the heritability estimates for autumn Cu concentration and Zn concentration were 0·35±0·11 and 0·26±0·13, respectively. The genetic and environmental correlations between autumn Cu concentration and Zn concentration were ?0·29±0·31 and 0·15±0·11, respectively, suggesting antagonistic effects between Zn and Cu only at the genetic level, with a net (phenotypic) correlation of 0·02±0·06. Genetic correlations between Cu concentration (outside the autumn season) and 6-month, 9-month and yearling weights ranged from 0·15±0·15 to 0·17±0·16. It was concluded that serum Cu and Zn concentrations in calves were heritable traits under the grazing conditions encountered, and that index selection to increase live weights and Cu concentrations could be applied if desired.

1978 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 373
Author(s):  
R Barlow ◽  
EB Dettmann

Weaning weight (WW) and conformation score (CS) records on Angus calves from four New South Wales herds were analysed by least-squares procedures. Paternal half-sib components of variance and covariance were used to obtain estimates of heritabilities of various measures of growth and cs, as well as genetic, phenotypic and environmental correlations. Estimates of the heritabilities of measures of growth ranged from 0.20 (all data) to 0.24 when derived from heifer data only. The heritability of cs was 0.24 when the data were adjusted for ww, and 0.19 when no covariate was included in the analysis. All correlations among different measures of growth were positive and close to unity. There were small positive phenotypic and environmental correlations (0.19 to 0.36) and small negative genetic correlations between ww and cs (–0.02 to –0.41).


1996 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. R. Woolaston ◽  
L. R. Piper

AbstractAn animal model was used to estimate heritabilities of faecal egg count (FEC) and packed cell volume decline (PCVD) in lines of Merinos selected for divergent levels of resistance to Haemonchus contortus. The estimated heritability of FEC was 0·23 (s.e. 0·03) and of PCVD was 0·21 (s.e. 0·03). A cube root transformation was found to be effective in normalizing FEC data and reducing the range of within selection line-birth year variances from 118-fold to 10-fold. Transforming FEC data increased the heritability estimate to 0·29 (s.e. 0·03) and reduced selection bias due to heterogeneity of variance, but the further step of pre-adjusting the transformed data to a common variance had only a trivial effect. Heritability estimates for FEC in years with high means and variances were similar, as were estimates for transformed FEC. The estimated genetic correlations between measurements in years with high and low means and variabilities were 0·77 to 0·91.PCVD and pre-adjusted transformed FEC had a phenotypic correlation of 0·48. Estimates for the genetic correlation ranged from 0·76 in the decreased resistance line to 1·00 in the increased resistance line and 0·87 with pooled data. Other effects on resistance included birth type and dam age, with twins and progeny of maiden dams being more resistant than their cohorts. Sex effects were unimportant for FEC but males had higher PCVD than females in most, but not all, years. Younger animals had higher FEC and PCVD than older animals. Maternal genetic effects were found to be unimportant, as were the effects of low levels of inbreeding.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart Baselmans ◽  
Yayouk Willems ◽  
Toos van Beijsterveldt ◽  
Lannie Ligthart ◽  
Gonneke WIllemsen ◽  
...  

Whether well-being and depressive symptoms can be considered as two sides of the same coin is widely debated. The aim of this study was to gain insight into the etiology of the association between well-being and depressive symptoms across the lifespan. In a cohort-sequential design, including data from 43,427 twins between age 7 and 99, we estimated the association between well-being and depressive symptoms throughout the lifespan and assessed genetic and environmental contributions to the observed overlap. For both well-being (range 31% –45%) and depressive symptoms (range 50%-61%), genetic factors explained a substantial part of the phenotypic variance across the lifespan. Correlations between well-being and depressive symptoms across ages ranged from -.34 in childhood to -.49 in adulthood. In children and adults (aged &gt;27), environmental effects explained 51% to 59% of the phenotypic correlation, while for adolescents and young adults strong genetic influences (60%-77%) on the association were observed. Moderate to high genetic correlations (ranging from 0.60 to 0.70) were observed in adolescence and adulthood, while in childhood environmental correlations were substantial but genetic correlations small. These results suggest that environmental factors are important in explaining the relationship between well-being and depressive symptoms in childhood, while from adolescence onwards a genetic predisposition for higher well-being is indicative for a genetic predisposition for lower depressive symptoms, and vice versa. These results provided more insights into the etiological underpinnings of well-being and depressive symptoms, possibly allowing to articulate better strategies for health promotion and resource allocation in the future.


1994 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 459 ◽  
Author(s):  
LD Brash ◽  
NM Fogarty ◽  
SA Barwick ◽  
AR Gilmour

Analyses of two separate Border Leicester data sets are reported. In the first set, genetic parameters were estimated for 14 month liveweight and greasy fleece weight from 1312 ewe and ram records representing 75 sires of the Border Leicester and Glen Vale breeds (a related genotype) using derivative-free REML procedures. The heritability estimate for liveweight was 0.24 � 0.07 and greasy fleece weight was 0.17 � 0-05, with the genetic correlation being -0 21 � 0 -30 and phenotypic correlation 0.54 � 0.02. In the second data set, reproductive performance was analysed and genetic parameters were estimated from 7395 joining records for 1604 ewes, representing 165 sires, from two Border Leicester stud flocks. Reproduction traits analysed were fertility (ewes lambing of ewes joined), litter size (lambs born per ewe lambing) and lambs born (per ewe joined). The studs differed in performance for all reproductive traits; fertility (67 v. 82%), litter size (1-27 v. 1-43) and lambs born (85 v. 117%). The estimates of heritability and repeatability respectively for ewe performance were: fertility 0.01 � 0.01 and 0.05 � 0 01, litter size 0.01 � 0.02 and 0.05 � 0.01, lambs born 0.00 � 0.01 and 0.06 � 0.01. Estimates of heritability for average ewe lifetime performance were 0.04% 0.05 for fertility, 0-02 �0.05 for litter size and 0.03 � 0.05 for lambs born, based on averages of 4.6 joining and 3.5 litter size records for ewes. The genetic correlations between lambs born and its components fertility (0.96 � 0.18) and litter size (0.83 � 0.44) were high, with the genetic correlation between fertility and litter size being 0.65 � 0.52. Implications for breeding programs for Border Leicester flocks within LAMBPLAN are discussed.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 282-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Herverton Albuquerque Rocha ◽  
Vivian Loges ◽  
Andreza Santos da Costa ◽  
Fernando Antônio Souza de Aragão ◽  
Venézio F Santos

A genetic study of seven cultivars of H. psittacorum and Heliconia interspecific hybrids was carried out. The heritability estimate and genetic variation coefficient were highest for stem diameter (SD) (99.32% and 56.90%, respectively) and for CVg/CVe (1.85), indicating a favorable situation for selection. The genetic correlations of SD with days to inflorescence emergence (DIE) (0.64), period from shoot emergence to stem cut (CYCLE) (0.63) and stem weight (SW) (0.96) showed that the time from inflorescence emergence to cut is longer and the stem weight is greater for genotypes with larger stem diameter. Inflorescence length (IL), SD and DIE were the most important traits, accounting for 99.55% of the total variation. For SD and IL, the repeatability values exceeded 0.60 and for SD, SW, DIE and IL the coefficients of determination exceeded 93%.


2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 435-443
Author(s):  
R. J. C. Cantet ◽  
J. P. Steibel ◽  
A. N. Birchmeier ◽  
L. F. Santa Coloma

Abstract. Growth and carcass data of Angus cattle were used to estimate heritabilities and genetic and environmental correlations between growth and carcass traits by means of a Bayesian data augmentation (DA) algorithm. Records were taken on 739 Angus steers from 31 sires, during 10 years of a designed progeny test. The cattle were entirely fed on grass during their lifelong. Growth traits evaluated were birth (BW), weaning (WW) and 18-month (W18) weights; and carcass traits were the weights of half the carcass (HCW), of hind "pistola" cut (HPW) and of three retail cuts (ECW). The model used for estimation was a multiple trait additive animal model. The prior densities used in the analyses were the multivariate normal for the fixed effects (with very large variances) and for the breeding values, and the inverted Wishart for the additive and environmental covariance matrices. The observed residual vector was augmented with sampled residuals for missing traits. The total number of samples drawn was 200,000. The heritabilities of growth traits increased with age at measure, and those of carcass traits were of sizeable magnitude. Whereas estimates of the genetic correlations were similar to those found in the literature for cattle fed on concentrates, environmental correlations were lower. Additive correlations between growth traits with either the HPW or ECW, were smaller than the correlations between growth characters and HCW.


2008 ◽  
Vol 48 (10) ◽  
pp. 1326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Brand ◽  
S. W. P. Cloete ◽  
I. A. Malecki ◽  
C. R. Brown

The ostrich industry suffers from a high rate of embryonic mortality during artificial incubation of eggs. Data from 34 285 eggs were used to derive 969 female-year records for evaporative water loss (WL), treated as a trait of the female. Heritability was significant for WL at a level of 0.40–0.41 (both after 21 and 35 days of incubation). WL at 21 and 35 days was negatively correlated on the genetic level with chick weight at hatching (–0.84 and –0.81, respectively). Shell deaths did not exhibit high levels of genetic variation (0.06), but were affected by the permanent environment of the female (0.33). Shell deaths were correlated with WL on a genetic level (–0.34 to –0.41), but the estimated genetic correlations were associated with high standard errors and are, therefore, not very robust. Further research is needed to obtain more accurate genetic relationships between traits influencing incubation.


2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Aitken Schermer ◽  
Andrew M. Johnson ◽  
Philip A. Vernon ◽  
Kerry L. Jang

The relationship between self-report abilities and personality was examined at both the phenotypic (zero-order) level as well as at the genetic and environmental levels. Twins and siblings (N = 516) completed self-report ability and personality questionnaires. A factor analysis of the ability questions revealed 10 factors, including politics, interpersonal relationships, practical tasks, intellectual pursuits, academic skills, entrepreneur/business, domestic skills, vocal abilities, and creativity. Five personality factors were examined, including extraversion, conscientiousness, dependence, aggression, and openness. At the phenotypic level, the correlations between the ability factor scores and personality factor scores ranged from 0 to .60 (between political abilities and extraversion). The relationship between the two areas at the genetic level was found to range between –.01 and .60; the environmental correlations ranged from –.01 to .48. The results suggest that some of the self-report ability scores are related to self-report personality, and that some of these observed relationships may have a common genetic basis while others are from a common environmental factor.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusuke Takahashi ◽  
Anqing Zheng ◽  
Shinji Yamagata ◽  
Juko Ando

AbstractUsing a genetically informative design (about 2000 twin pairs), we investigated the phenotypic and genetic and environmental architecture of a broad construct of conscientiousness (including conscientiousness per se, effortful control, self-control, and grit). These four different measures were substantially correlated; the coefficients ranged from 0.74 (0.72–0.76) to 0.79 (0.76–0.80). Univariate genetic analyses revealed that individual differences in conscientiousness measures were moderately attributable to additive genetic factors, to an extent ranging from 62 (58–65) to 64% (61–67%); we obtained no evidence that shared environmental influences were observed. Multivariate genetic analyses showed that for the four measures used to assess conscientiousness, genetic correlations were stronger than the corresponding non-shared environmental correlations, and that a latent common factor accounted for over 84% of the genetic variance. Our findings suggest that individual differences in the four measures of conscientiousness are not distinguishable at both the phenotypic and behavioural genetic levels, and that the overlap was substantially attributable to genetic factors.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Andrew D. Grotzinger

Abstract Psychiatric disorders overlap substantially at the genetic level, with family-based methods long pointing toward transdiagnostic risk pathways. Psychiatric genomics has progressed rapidly in the last decade, shedding light on the biological makeup of cross-disorder risk at multiple levels of analysis. Over a hundred genetic variants have been identified that affect multiple disorders, with many more to be uncovered as sample sizes continue to grow. Cross-disorder mechanistic studies build on these findings to cluster transdiagnostic variants into meaningful categories, including in what tissues or when in development these variants are expressed. At the upper-most level, methods have been developed to estimate the overall shared genetic signal across pairs of traits (i.e. single-nucleotide polymorphism-based genetic correlations) and subsequently model these relationships to identify overarching, genomic risk factors. These factors can subsequently be associated with external traits (e.g. functional imaging phenotypes) to begin to understand the makeup of these transdiagnostic risk factors. As psychiatric genomic efforts continue to expand, we can begin to gain even greater insight by including more fine-grained phenotypes (i.e. symptom-level data) and explicitly considering the environment. The culmination of these efforts will help to inform bottom-up revisions of our current nosology.


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