ACTA VETERINARIA ET ZOOTECHNICA SINICA ›› 2018, Vol. 49 ›› Issue (3): 525-533.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2018.03.008

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Tissue Expression and Polymorphism of Sheep FGF 7 Gene and Their Association with Litter Size

ZHOU Mei1, CAO Xiao-han1, HE Xiao-yun1, SUN Qing1, DI Ran1, HU Wen-ping1, WANG Xiang-yu1, ZHANG Xiao-sheng2, ZHANG Jin-long2, LIU Qiu-yue1*, CHU Ming-xing1*   

  1. 1. Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China;
    2. Tianjin Institute of Animal Sciences, Tianjin 300381, China
  • Received:2017-07-17 Online:2018-03-23 Published:2018-03-13

Abstract:

To elucidate the association between tissue expression level and polymorphism of FGF 7 and litter size in sheep, semi-quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (sqRT-PCR) and quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) were performed to investigate the expression of FGF 7 gene in multiparous Small Tail Han sheep and uniparous Sunite sheep and different genotypes of FecB gene in Small Tail Han sheep. Multiparous (380 Small Tail Han sheep) and uniparous (total 380 for Tan, Sunite, Suffolk, Dorper and Prairie Tibetan sheep) sheep breeds were selected, and the locus of g.57842893C>T in FGF 7 gene was genotyped using Sequenom MassARRAY® SNP assay. Then the association was analyzed between FGF 7 gene and litter size in Small Tail Han sheep. The results showed that the expression of FGF 7 was at high level in heart and lung in both uniparous and multiparous sheep breeds and at moderate or low level in other tissues. The expression of FGF 7 was higher in most tissues in multiparous Small Tail Han sheep than in uniparous Sunite sheep, but the difference was not significant (P>0.05), while the expression of FGF 7 had no obvious differences among 3 genotypes of FecB gene in Small Tail Han sheep. Three genotypes (CC, CT and TT) were found at g.57842893C>T locus in both uniparous and multiparous sheep, both genotype frequency and allele frequency reached significant difference between uniparous and multiparous sheep (P ≤ 0.05). Population genetic analysis indicated that the g.57842893C>T locus was at moderate polymorphism (0.25 < PIC < 0.50) in Sunite, Suffolk and Dorper and at low polymorphism (PIC<0.25) in other sheep breeds; χ2 test revealed that the g.57842893C>T locus was under Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in Sunite, Suffolk and Dorper sheep (P>0.05). Association analysis indicated that the g.57842893C>T locus didn't have significant correlation with the litter size of the first, second or third parity in Small Tail Han sheep (P>0.05), while the litter size of individuals with CC was higher than those with TT for each parity. Therefore, we concluded that there might be a certain positive correlation between the expression level of FGF 7and the litter size in sheep, although it may not be the key gene for litter size, the g.57842893C>T locus might provide a basis for litter size trait selection in sheep.

Key words: sheep, FGF7 gene, tissue expression, SNP genotyping, litter size

CLC Number: