Positional candidate cloning of a QTL in dairy cattle: Identification of a missense mutation in the bovine DGAT1 gene with major effect on milk yield and composition

We recently mapped a quantitative trait locus (QTL) with a major effect on milk composition-particularly fat content-to the centromeric end of bovine chromosome 14. We subsequently exploited linkage disequilibrium to refine the map position of this QTL to a 3-cM chromosome interval bounded by microsatellite markers BULGE13 and BULGE09. We herein report the positional candidate cloning of this QTL, involving (I) the construction of a BAC contig spanning the corresponding marker interval, (2) the demonstration that a very strong candidate gene, acylCoA:diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGATf), maps to that contig, and (3) the identification of a nonconservative K232A substitution in the DGAT1 gene with a major effect on milk fat content and other milk characteristics.