Abstract:

The fat-tailed or fat-rumped is one of important trait of stress tolerance, however, the mechanism of fat deposition is still unclear. Therefore, the present study choose a novel SNP reported in recently literature as a candidate molecular marker and detect the polymorphism among Altay, Kazakh, Hu, Chinese Merino and Suffolk which has extreme differences in tail type by using PCR-RFLP method. In addition, a mathematical model was employed to analyze the correlation between the polymorphism and the trait of fat-tailed or fat-rumped. Our results showed that the frequency of G allele was highest in Altay which had higher phenotype score, and the frequency of A allele was rather higher in thin-tailed sheep breeds. The result of mathematical model showed that the ratio of G/A increased exponentially with the phenotype score increasing. Together, the results suggested that there was significant differences in the SNP distribution between fat-tailed and thin-tailed sheep populations, and the SNP could be used as an ideal molecular marker to help high and low fat sheep breeding.

Key words: Stress tolerance, Fat tail trait, Altay sheep, Polymorphism, Genotype