Assessing single-nucleotide polymorphism selection methods for the development of a low-density panel optimized for imputation in South African Drakensberger beef cattle.

A major obstacle in applying genomic selection (GS) to uniquely adapted local breeds in less-developed countries has been the cost of genotyping at high densities of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP). Cost reduction can be achieved by imputing genotypes from lower to higher densities. Locally adapted breeds tend to be admixed and exhibit a high degree of genomic heterogeneity thus necessitating the optimization of SNP selection for downstream imputation. The aim of this study was to quantify the achievable imputation accuracy for a sample of 1,135 South African (SA) Drakensberger cattle using several custom-derived lower-density panels varying in both SNP density and how the SNP were selected. From a pool of 120,608 genotyped SNP, subsets of SNP were chosen (1) at random, (2) with even genomic dispersion, (3) by maximizing the mean minor allele frequency (MAF), (4) using a combined score of MAF and linkage disequilibrium (LD), (5) using a partitioning-around-medoids (PAM) algorithm, and finally (6) using a hierarchical LD-based clustering algorithm. Imputation accuracy to higher density improved as SNP density increased; animal-wise imputation accuracy defined as the within-animal correlation between the imputed and actual alleles ranged from 0.625 to 0.990 when 2,500 randomly selected SNP were chosen vs. a range of 0.918 to 0.999 when 50,000 randomly selected SNP were used. At a panel density of 10,000 SNP, the mean (standard deviation) animal-wise allele concordance rate was 0.976 (0.018) vs. 0.982 (0.014) when the worst (i.e., random) as opposed to the best (i.e., combination of MAF and LD) SNP selection strategy was employed. A difference of 0.071 units was observed between the mean correlation-based accuracy of imputed SNP categorized as low (0.01 < MAF ≤ 0.1) vs. high MAF (0.4 < MAF ≤ 0.5). Greater mean imputation accuracy was achieved for SNP located on autosomal extremes when these regions were populated with more SNP. The presented results suggested that genotype imputation can be a practical cost-saving strategy for indigenous breeds such as the SA Drakensberger. Based on the results, a genotyping panel consisting of ~10,000 SNP selected based on a combination of MAF and LD would suffice in achieving a <3% imputation error rate for a breed characterized by genomic admixture on the condition that these SNP are selected based on breed-specific selection criteria.