Polymorphism in prolactin and PEPCK-C genes and its association with economic traits in native fowl of Yazd province

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Animal Science, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, P.O. Box 386, Gorgan, I.R. Iran.

2 Animal Science Research Institute of Iran, P.O. Box 3146618361, Karaj, I.R. Iran 3Gonbad Higher Education Center, P.O. Box 163, Gonbad, I.R. Iran.

Abstract

The objective of the present study was to investigate the polymorphism of prolactin promoter and cytosolic
phosphoenol pyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK-C) intron 3 to exon 3 regions, and its association with economic
traits in native fowl of Yazd province. These traits consisted of body weight at 8 (BW8) and 12 (BW12) weeks of age, age at sexual maturity (ASM), weight at sexual maturity (WSM), mean egg weight at
28, 30, and 32 weeks (MEW), and the number of eggs during the first 12 weeks of laying period (EN). Blood
samples were collected from 159 pedigreed fowl at native fowl breeding center of Yazd province, and DNA
was extracted from the samples according to saltingout protocol. PCR amplification together with restriction
fragment length polymorphism was used to identify different genotypes of prolactin and PEPCK-C
genes. The effect of prolactin genotypes on economic traits was analyzed using general linear model. A 24-
bp indel (insertion or deletion) at nucleotide position (np) 358 was identified, but no polymorphism was
found for PEPCK-C. Based on our results, the frequency of I and D alleles were 0.761 and 0.239,
respectively. Frequencies of II, ID and DD genotypes were 0.566, 0.389 and 0.044, respectively. Genotypes
II and ID were significantly associated with incresased EN (P<0.01). Meanwhile, the genotypes of the 24-bp
indel site were not significantly associated with BW8, BW12, ASM, WSM and MEW (P> 0.05). The results of
current study showed that using information of genes related to egg production could be used to improve the
performance of native fowl of Yazd province.

Keywords