Effect of GH gene polymorphism on growth traits in goats of Meghalaya’s subtropical hilly region

Abstract

Growth hormone (GH) gene regulates milk production, reproduction, and growth in animals. Therefore, the present study was performed to investigate the genetic variations in the GH gene and their relationship with biometric features in the Sirohi and Assam Hill goats. PCR-RFLP was used to detect polymorphic loci (GH1-HaeIII and GH2-HaeIII) associated with growth parameters including body weight (kg), body length (cm), height at the withers (cm), and chest girth (cm) in the Assam Hill (n=114) and Sirohi (n=47) goats breeds. According to PCR- RFLP results, the GH gene’s GH1-HaeIII locus contains two alleles (A and B) and two genotypes (AA and AB), whereas the GH2-HaeIII locus contains two alleles (C and D) and two genotypes (CC and CD). In both the goat breeds, A and B allele frequencies were 0.36-0.28 and 0.64-0.72, respectively, while the frequencies of alleles C and D were 0.71-0.70 and 0.29-0.30. The polymorphic loci were demonstrated to be in a state of Hardy-Weinberg disequilibrium in both breeds of goats. The growth characteristics of the Assam Hill goat breed were shown to be correlated with GH gene variations. In both of these breeds, AB and CD genotypes displayed slightly higher values of certain biometric traits than the AA and CC genotypes; however, only in Assam Hill goats, body length and chest girth were significantly correlated. Hence, the AB and CD genotypes have been proposed as potential markers for improved growth parameters in the examined goat breeds; however, more research with a larger sample size must be conducted to substantiate this finding.

Keywords

• GH gene, Goat, Growth trait, Polymorphism