TY - JOUR T1 - Insights into the genetic determinism and evolution of recombination rates from combining multiple genome-wide datasets in Sheep JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/104976 SP - 104976 AU - Morgane Petit AU - Jean-Michel Astruc AU - Julien Sarry AU - Laurence Drouilhet AU - Stéphane Fabre AU - Carole Moreno AU - Bertrand Servin Y1 - 2017/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/02/104976.abstract N2 - Recombination is a complex biological process that results from a cascade of multiple events during meiosis. Understanding the genetic determinism of recombination can help to understand if and how these events are interacting. To tackle this question, we studied the patterns of recombination in sheep, using multiple approaches and datasets. We constructed genetic maps in the Lacaune breed at a fine scale by combining meiotic recombination rates from a large pedigree genotyped with a 50K SNP array and historical recombination rates from a sample of unrelated individuals genotyped with a 600K SNP array. This analysis revealed recombination patterns in sheep similar to other mammals but also genome regions that have likely been affected by directional and diversifying selection. We estimated the average recombination rate of Lacaune sheep at 1.5 cM/Mb, identified about 50,000 crossover hotspots on the genome and found a high correlation between population- and pedigree-based recombination rate estimates. A genome-wide association study revealed three major loci affecting inter-individual variation in recombination rate, including the RNF212, HEI10 and KCNJ15 genes. Finally, we compared our results to those obtained previously in a distantly related population of domestic sheep, the Soay. This comparison revealed on one hand that Soay and Lacaune sheep have similar genetic determinant of total recombination rate while confirming that Soay sheep have experienced strong selection greatly increasing their recombination rate. Taken together these observations highlight that multiple genetically independent pathways affect recombination rate. ER -