Abstract Heat stress poses a significant challenge to cattle production by disrupting physiological homeostasis, impairing productivity, and reducing reproductive efficiency. Genetic improvement through selective breeding for thermotolerance represents a sustainable and cost-effective mitigation strategy. To elucidate the genomic basis of heat stress adaptation in tropical cattle, we performed a comprehensive whole-genome comparative analysis of Bos indicus breeds. High-throughput sequencing identified 25,967,634 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 20,528,061 insertions/deletions (InDels) across the studied populations. Functional annotation of 15,456 genes harboring high-impact variants revealed critical pathways involved in cellular stress response. Notably, heat shock factor 1 (HSF1) emerged as a master regulator of the heat shock response (HSR), orchestrating the expression of heat shock proteins (HSPs) that maintain proteostasis through molecular chaperoning, protein refolding, and degradation of irreversibly damaged proteins. Furthermore, HSF1 modulates additional stress-responsive pathways, including the unfolded protein response (UPR), antioxidant defense mechanisms, and autophagy. Protein-protein interaction network analysis identified key hub genes—GSK3B, BCL2, HSPA5, CASP3, HSP90B1, PPARG, TGFB1, MTOR, MAPK3, and HSPA4—implicated in thermotolerance. These findings elucidate genomic variants and mechanisms underlying thermotolerance in Bos indicus, providing targets for breeding resilient cattle in tropical climates.
Kumar et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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