Livestock Studies 2019, Vol 59, Num, 3     (Pages: 117-129)

Heat stress and thermotolerance: Molecular studies in cattle

Özge Şebnem Çıldır 1 ,Özge Özmen 1

1 Ankara Üniversitesi, Veteriner Fakültesi, Genetik Anabilim Dalı, Altındağ, Ankara - The risk of global climate change has been increasing from day to day due to, the increase in the human population, environmental pollution, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It is estimated that the surface temperature will increase by approximately 1.8 to 4.8 °C at the end of the 2100s. Cattle breeds, which are living in temperate climates will face off increasing temperatures and heat stress in the future. The stress response resulting from the high-temperature effect also results in loss of yield in cattle. Additionally, high temperature and humidity levels cause negative effects on productivity. All these reasons, reveal the necessity of molecular studies related to heat stress and thermotolerance. Scientists have been investigating the molecular mechanisms of heat stress and thermotolerance with many different approaches such as genome-wide association study (GWAS), gene expression, polymorphism, and microRNA studies. In this review, heat stress and its harmful effects are described and molecular studies, which are applied to cattle have been explained. Keywords : Heat stress, GWAS, polymorphism, gene expression, miRNA