Genetic polymorphism at the growth hormone locus in Iranian Talli goats by polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformation polymorphism [PCR-SSCP]

The growth hormone gene could be an attractive candidate gene for milk production in goats. Single-strand conformation polymorphism was used to identify polymorphism at the goat growth hormone [gGH] gene. For this purpose, genotyping of 90 Talli goat breeds was performed. Nine conformational patterns were observed in exon 4 of the gGH gene, with frequencies of 27.7% for the homozygous pattern [AA] and 72.2% for all of other heterozygous patterns [A/B, A/C, A/B/C, A/B/D/E, A/B/C/F, A/C/F, A/B/E, A/B/F]. The results showed that exon 4 of the GH gene in Talli goats is highly polymorphic

Genetic polymorphism at MTNR1A, CAST and CAPN loci in Iranian Karakul sheep

Genotypes for melatonin receptor type 1A [MTNR1A] and Calpastatin [CAST] were determined by enzymatic digestion of PCR products and Calpain [CAPN] genotype detected by PCR-SSCP method in Iranian Karakul sheep. Blood samples were collected from 100 purebred Karakul sheep. The extraction of genomic DNA was based on guanidinium thio-cyanate-silica gel method. PCR amplicons were digested with restriction enzymes Mnll and Mspl for MTNR1A and CAST genes, respectively. The MTNR1A locus had two alle-les with frequencies of 0.79 for [+] and 0.21 for [-] alleles. Allelic frequencies for CAST locus were 0.85 for M and 0.15 for N. In addition, Calpain had two alleles A and B with respective frequencies of 0.79 and 0.21. The observed het-erozygosity values for MTNR1A, Calpastatin and Calpain locus were 0.42, 0.29 and 0.35, respectively. The X[2] test confirmed the existence of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for the three loci in the population. The data showed a large variation in studied genes. The genetic polymorphism could be regarded as useful tool for selection programs based on marker- assisted selection between different genotypes of those loci

Genetic polymorphism of the melatonin receptor 1A locus in Iranian shall and karakul sheep

The genotypes of the melatonin receptor 1A [MTNR1A] were determined by PCR-RFLP in the native Iranian Shall and karakul breeds of sheep. Blood samples were collected from 60 karakul and 50 Shall breeds. Genomic DNA was extracted based on the Guanidin Thiocyanate-slica gel method. After PCR reaction, PCR products were digested by the Mnl1 restriction enzyme. The MTNR1A locus had two genotypes with frequencies of 0.7 [+ +] and 0.3 [+ -] in the Karakul breed, 0.58 [+ +] and 0.42 [+ -] in the shall breed. Heterozygosis value for the MTNR1A locus in Shall and Karakul breeds were 0.42 and 0.3, respectively. This study provided evidence that sheep breeds, Shall and Karakul have variability in MTNR1A locus. Therefore, this locus can be used as a marker for the reproduction trait in selection programs