Effects of quantitative trait loci on iron content of bovine longissimus dorsi muscle.

Beef cattle require dietary minerals to maintain their health, production and reproduction. Concentration of iron in bovine tissues is at least partially genetically determined. We genotyped 373 Nelore steers from 34 half-sib families with the Illumina BovineHD BeadChip. Genome-wide association analysis was performed for iron content of the longissimus dorsi muscle using a Bayesian approach. A large-effect QTL which explained 6.53% of the additive genetic variance in iron amount was detected at 72 Mb on BTA12. The candidate gene lists generated for all detected QTL were enriched for genes involved in signal transduction, signaling pathway, integral to membrane, intrinsic to membrane, regulation of transcription and metal ion binding. Our findings provide the first step towards the implementation of genomic selection for iron content in Nelore beef cattle, however validation in other populations will be required to estimate the accuracy of molecular estimates of breeding value