In summary, genomic regions that are linked to positive
and balancing selection were detected within taurine
and zebu cattle, which represent the major sub-division
of domestic cattle. A number of previously described
regions containing positive selection were confirmed.
Novel selection regions were likely discovered due to the
higher resolution of informative SNPs available in this
study compared to previous analyses. Some of these
regions overlap with production QTL, and e.g. immunerelated
genes, suggesting that favorable variations to
adaptation and production are present in the general
cattle population, however the application of these results
into breeding programs to accelerate creation of
synthetic breeds with high production value in tropical
environments remains elusive until subsequent investigations
confirm the underlying effect of the variants
underlying the signatures. This information is needed to
define breeding systems able to efficiently introgress
specific genomic fragments of zebu in taurine cattle and
vice-versa.