Association between interleukin 8 receptor α gene (CXCR1) and mastitis in dairy cattle.

The innate immune response plays an important role in the course of bacterial infections. Innate immunity effectiveness relies on the expression of many genes, connected, among others, to the activity of neutrophils. Interleukin 8 (IL-8) receptor α, coded by the CXCR1 gene, is present on the neutrophil surface and binds pro-inflammatory IL-8 with high affinity.

Locus BoLA-DRB3 is just an ordinary site of the polygene when explaining genetic variance of somatic cell count and milk yield.

The study aimed at clarifying the problem of the hitherto contradictory results regarding usefulness of BoLA-DRB3 locus as a marker in selection against mastitis and for milk yield. Treating the BoLA-DRB3 locus effect as random was proposed in place of considering it fixed. Somatic cell counts and milk yields recorded monthly on a test day (22,424) of 619 Polish Holstein cows genotyped for BoLA-DRB3 were analysed with an animal model including a random effect for genotype at this locus.