The Genetics of Racing Performance in Arabian Horses

Table 2

Summary of top candidate genes for endurance ability in Arabian horses.

Gene/miRNA symbol	Biological function/pathways/gene family	Population	Associated trait(s)	Methodology/type of analysis	Reference
IL8, EIF4G3, HSP90AA1, RBBP6	Interleukins, heat shock proteins	Arab endurance horses	Training-induced stress response	cDNA-AFLP; RT-PCR	Cappelli et al., [27]
ITGAL, ITGAM, IL22A2, CXCL1, IL1R1, TLR1, EEF1A2, GATA2, BMP2, FLT4, MAP3K4, MAPK14	Growth factors or the cell cycle regulation molecules, integrin, interleukins, kinases	Pure-breed Arabian horses	Inflammation and immune system activation occur following physical stress in equine athletes	SOLiD whole transcriptome (blood tissue)	Capomaccio et al. [26]
ZFP42, SPI1, FOXO3, IRF3, NRF1, miR-21-5p, miR-181b-5p, miR-505-5p	FoxO signalling pathway, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPARγ) signalling pathway, oxidation stress, proteolysis and immune response pathways	Pure-breed or half-breed Arabian	Glucose metabolism, fatty acid oxidation, and immune response exercise adaptation	RNA and miRNA microarrays (blood tissue)	Mach et al., [28]
SORCS3, SLC39A12, KCNQ1OT1	Mitochondrial metabolism, oxidative phosphorylation metabolism, metal ion, cation binding, and haematopoiesis	Pure-breed Arabians and Arabian-cross horses (French population)	Total race distance, average race speed, finishing status, cardiac rhythm	GWAS	Ricard et al., [36]
TLR4, FoxO3, CREBBP, RBL2, SIRT1, BCL6, POLR2I, TOR3A, miR-92a-3p, miR-192-5p, miR-21-5p, miR-16-5p, and let-7 family	LPS-induced proinflammatory pathway; energy-purine and pyrimidine catabolism	Pure-breed or half-breed Arabian horses	Physiological adaptation to physical exertion; regulation of metabolic and immune response to endurance exercise	Transcriptome and miRNome NGS sequencing, metabolome (blood tissue)	Mach et al., [33]
miR-1, miR-133a-3p, miR-133b, miR-133a, miR-206, miR-208b, miR-224, miR-95, miR-1180, miR-499b-3p, miR-486-3p, miR-486-5p, miR-504-5p	Targeted genes involved in muscle remodeling (EGFR, IGF1, PURB, TAGLN), cellular homeostasis maintenance (SLC5A3, SLC1A2, SLC7A1)	Pure-breed Arabian horses	Biomarkers for exercise adaptation to endurance effort	miRNAome NGS sequencing (blood tissue)	Cappelli et al., [32]