Structural features of the 5’ flanking region of the Yak (Bos grunniens) growth hormone receptor (GHR) gene (Brief Report)

摘要

Yak () is a species of the Bovidae family living on the Qinghai-TibetanPlateau and its adjacent territories at altitudes from 2 000–5 000 m (LUO et al. 2005, MA etal. 2009). As a multi-purpose domestic animal, yaks are indispensable to the local animalhusbandry development because it can provide life necessities such as meat, milk, fur,velour manufacturing, transportation and manure for fuel to the local herdsmen. Thereare twelve yak populations numbered around 13.3 million in China and the Bazhou yak isone of Chinese yak populations (WIENER et al. 2003). The Growth Hormone Receptor(GHR) gene was identified as a candidate gene affecting key quantitative traits, likegrowth, milk yield and composition in livestock. At present, only investigations werecarried out on the genetic variation in Exon-8, Intron-8 and Exon-10 of the yak gene(VARVIO et al. 2008), no other information on the yak gene is available. The purposesof this study were to– analyze the structural features of the 5’ flanking region of the yak gene– compare the 5’ flanking region of yak gene with that of other species of the family and– construct the phylogenetic tree to indicate the evolutionary relationship among them.