Estimation of Variance Components in Body and Ultrasound Carcass Traits and Associations Between These Traits and Some Snp's in PLAG1, NCAPG, LCORL, and HMGA2 Genes of Anatolian Water Buffaloes in Afyonkarahisar Province

The goals of the study were to determine the environmental factors affecting growth, body measurement, and ultrasound carcass traits, estimate genetic and phenotypic parameters, and detect associations with some single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in PLAG1, NCAPG, LCORL, and HMGA2 genes in Anatolian Buffaloes maintained at private farms of Afyonkarahisar province. The research was carried out on the buffalo calves born in 2019 at 118 farm operations registered to the "Community Based Buffalo Improvement Project" governed by the General Directorate of Agricultural Research and Policies (GDAR) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The data was collected from 740 buffalo calves. Only animals with at least two records used to predict the value at one year of age were used in the study. Thus, the number of analysed animals ranged from 102 to 309 according to traits examined and considering pandemic (COVID-19) precautions limiting personnel movement. It has been revealed that environmental factors such as farm, birth season, sex, maternal age, and birth weight could affect growth, body measurements, and ultrasound carcass traits at a significant (P<0.05) level. The least-squares means for body weights at birth, six and twelve months of age were 32.70 ± 0.28, 101.80 ± 1.20, and 175.41 ± 2.06 kg, respectively. The means for wither height, rump height, body length, chest width, hip width, chest circumference, and cannon-bone circumference in yearling calves were 108.35 ± 0.34, 111.85 ± 0.37, 103.74 ± 0.41, 33.93 ± 0.23, 30.56 ± 0.23, 135.18 ± 0.60 and 15.69 ± 0.08 cm, respectively. The means for longissimus muscle area, longissimus muscle depth, and subcutaneous fat thickness in yearling calves were 19.36 ± 0.45 cm2, 3.086 ± 0.028, and 0.655 ± 0.006 cm, respectively. Direct, maternal, and total heritabilities for body weights at birth, six and twelve months of age were 0.224 ± 0.019, 0.298 ± 0.025, and 0.334 ± 0.032; 0.003 ± 0.337, 0.525 ± 0.316, and 0.646 ± 0.291, and 0.226 ± 0.169, 0.560 ± 0.154, and 0.656 ± 0.140, respectively. The same parameter estimates for wither height, rump height, body length, chest width, hip width, chest circumference, and cannon-bone circumference were 0.483 ± 0.044, 0.473 ± 0.043; 0.441 ± 0.041; 0.364 ± 0.034; 0.432 ± 0.040; 0.435 ± 0.040, and 0.226 ± 0.021; 0.000 ± 0.355, 0.035 ± 0.351; 0.292 ± 0.338; 0.235 ± 0.351; 0.256 ± 0.352; 0.416 ± 0.325, and 0.761 ± 0.276, and 0.483 ± 0.178, 0.491 ± 0.175; 0.587 ± 0.166; 0.481 ± 0.173; 0.560 ± 0.173; 0.643 ± 0.159, and 0.606 ± 0.133, respectively. Direct, maternal, and total heritabilities for longissimus muscle area and depth, and subcutaneous fat thickness were 0.0001 ± 0.000, 0.300 ± 0.026, and 0.539 ± 0.046; 0.000 ± 0.704, 0.496 ± 0.326, and 0.315 ± 0.277, and 0.001 ± 0.351, 0.547 ± 0.159, and 0.697 ± 0.137, respectively. All the genetic and phenotypic correlations among body weight, body measurements, and ultrasound carcass traits at twelve months of age were significant (P<0.01) except for the genetic correlation between chest and hip widths. The genetic and phenotypic correlations predicted in this study were ranged from 0.02 to 0.90. SNPs in PLAG1 and NCAPG genes were monomorphic in this population. Additionally, SNPs in the LCORL and HMGA2 genes were not to be found significant but showed some tendencies in the aspects of least-squares means. As a result, it was concluded that various environmental factors affecting growth, body size, and ultrasound carcass traits, as well as inheritance and genetic relationships between these traits, should be considered in buffalo selection programs.