Beta‐globin gene evolution in the ruminants: evidence for an ancient origin of sheep haplotype B

Domestic sheep (Ovis aries) can be divided into two groups with significantly different responses to hypoxic environments, determined by two allelic beta‐globin haplotypes. Haplotype A is very similar to the goat beta‐globin locus, whereas haplotype B has a deletion spanning four globin genes, including beta‐C globin, which encodes a globin with high oxygen affinity. We surveyed the beta‐globin locus using resequencing data from 70 domestic sheep from 42 worldwide breeds and three Ovis canadensis and two Ovis dalli individuals. Haplotype B has an allele frequency of 71.4% in O. aries and was homozygous (BB) in all five wild sheep. This shared ancestry indicates haplotype B is at least 2–3 million years old. Approximately 40 kb of the sequence flanking the ~37‐kb haplotype B deletion had unexpectedly low identity between haplotypes A and B. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the divergent region of sheep haplotype B is remarkably distinct from the beta‐globin loci in goat and cattle but still groups with the Ruminantia. We hypothesize that this divergent ~40‐kb region in haplotype B may be from an unknown ancestral ruminant and was maintained in the lineage to O. aries, but not other Bovidae, evolving independently of haplotype A. Alternatively, the ~40‐kb sequence in haplotype B was more recently acquired by an ancestor of sheep from an unknown non‐Bovidae ruminant, replacing part of haplotype A. Haplotype B has a lower nucleotide diversity than does haplotype A, suggesting a recent bottleneck, whereas the higher frequency of haplotype B suggests a subsequent spread through the global population of O. aries.