Metabolic stress throughout lactation in dairy cows, obesity in women and poor body condition of female mink have been related to shorter telomere length (Valdes et al., 2005; Moreno-Navarrete et al., 2010; Boudreau et al., 2014; Laubenthal et al., 2016), supporting the present findings that associate BCS with POT1. TMEM229A gene, which is located in the proximity of rs424834097, has been previously associated with body conformation traits in cattle and high-performance phenotypes in athletes (Boulygina et al., 2020; Abdalla et al., 2021). Here, TMEM229A is linked to obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency.