Preliminary identification and characterisation of leptin gene polymorphism in Indian goats

摘要

The leptin gene could be considered as a hotspot gene. Its role in meat and milk production makes it a candidate for the search of molecular markers related to meat production and meat quality in goats. Leptin gene polymorphism has not been thoroughly studied in Indian goat breeds. Thus for the first time, we report complete gene sequence, its variation including single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) in indigenous goats. In the present study, we discovered seven novel SNPs which were never reported previously by direct sequencing of gene in a panel of seven goat breeds differing in phenotype (weight and size) and geographical distribution. Whole leptin gene sequence of 4.8 kb of indigenous goat has been submitted in NCBI database (accession number GU944974). Bioinformatics analysis of the genomic sequences identified a total of 22 variations as compared to exotic goat (AM 114397.2) of which seven were SNPs. These novel SNPs were found in Exon 2 (g.1029T > C), Intron 2 (g.1621G > A) and 3?￠???2UTR (g.3968T > C, g.3971C > T, g.4026G > A, g.4105G > A and g.4225T > C). These leptin gene variants can be screened in the larger goat population for association studies with meat quality traits and marker-assisted selection.