DETERMINAÇÃO DAS VARIANTES DE HEMOGLOBINA EM OVINOS MESTIÇOS SANTA INÊS

Abstract

The knowledge of hemoglobin types may help in near future the selection of animals, serving as a genetic marker. The present work aimed to determine the types of hemoglobin in Santa Ines crossbreed sheep, and verify whether it has correlation with the erythron. It were collected 49 blood samples from different healthy Santa Ines crossbreed sheep, from Mossoró city, RN, Brazil. These samples were used for determination of packed cell volume, red blood cells counts, hemoglobin concentration, hematimetric indices (mean corpuscular volume - MCV, mean corpuscular hemoglobin - MCH, and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration - MCHC), and electrophoretic separation of hemoglobin. The electrophoresis revealed a slow band characterized as hemoglobin A (HbAA), a fast band characterized as hemoglobin B (HbBB) and both bands in the heterozygous hemoglobin A and B (HbAB). The type HbAB was the most frequently found, but all found types were present at representative amounts. The statistical analysis for comparison between the hemoglobin parameters and each parameter of the erythron revealed significant difference only for MCH; the other measurement were not statistically different. Thus, the hemoglobin types (HbAA, HbBB e HbAB) did not influence the erythron of sheep.