Genetic effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms in JAK2 and STAT5A genes on susceptibility of Chinese Holsteins to mastitis

The JAK–STAT pathway plays a key role in host immunity. The present study was designed to evaluate the effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in STAT5A and JAK2 genes on some serum cytokines, mastitis and milk production traits. Two SNPs (SNP1 43046497A/C and SNP2 43047829G/A) in STAT5A, and four SNPs in JAK2 (SNP3 39652267A/G, SNP4 39630048C/T, SNP5 39631044G/A, and SNP6 39631175T/C) were revealed and genotyped in 268 Chinese Holstein cattle. Fixed model was used to analyze the association of SNPs with phenotypes by general linear model procedure of SAS 9.1. SNP1 and SNP4 were significantly associated with IL-6 and IL-17 (P < 0.05), respectively. In JAK2 gene, SNP3 was highly significant (P < 0.01) and SNP5 was significant (P < 0.05) in association with SCC, whereas, the association of SNP6 was found significant (P < 0.05) with both SCC and SCS. Combination genotype analysis revealed that SNPs in JAK2 gene significantly associated with SCC and SCS were associated significantly with the corresponding phenotypes in combinations as well. The GG genotype of SNP3 individually and in any combination genotypes showed lowest SCC. The dominant effect of SNP1, SNP5 and SNP6 was found highly significant (P < 0.01) on the corresponding phenotypes (IL-6, SCC and SCS). As for haplotype analysis, two haplotypes were revealed between the two SNPs of STAT5A gene and four haplotypes amongst four SNPs in JAK2 gene; strong linkage disequilibrium (D′ > 0.9) was observed between all these haplotypes. The results imply that the identified SNPs could be powerful markers to select dairy cattle with improved genetic resistance against mastitis.