  Runs of homozygosity (ROH) are contiguous stretches of homozygous genome
which likely reflect transmission from common ances- tors and can be used to
track the inheritance of haplotypes of interest. In the present paper, ROH were
extracted from 50K SNPs and used to detect regions of the genome associated
with susceptibility to diseases in a population of 468 Holstein-Frisian cows.
Diagnosed diseases were categorised as infectious diseases, metabolic
syndromes, mastitis, reproductive diseases and locomotive disorders. ROH
associated with infectious diseases, mastitis and locomotive disorders were
found on BTA 12. A long region of homozygosity linked with metabolic syndromes,
infectious and reproductive diseases was detected on BTA 15, disclosing complex
relationships between immunity, metabolism and functional disorders. ROH
associated with infectious and reproductive diseases, mastitis and metabolic
syndromes were observed on chromosomes 3, 5, 7, 13 and 18. Previous studies
reported QTLs for milk production traits on all of these regions, thus
substantiating the known negative relationship between selection for milk
production and health in dairy cattle.
