Novel indel variations of the sheep FecB gene and their effects on litter size.

Haixia Li, Hongwei Xu, Zhanerke Akhatayeva, Hongfei Liu, Chunjian Lin, Xufei Han, Xiaofang Lu, Xianyong Lan, Qingfeng Zhang, Chuanying Pan

Gene 2021 Jan 30

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Various studies had shown that the FecB gene (also known as BMPRIB, BMPR1B or ALK-6) was the major gene influencing sheep litter size, for which its SNPs' variations were reportedly linked. Yet, surprisingly, there was no published information on the insertion/deletion (indel) variation of this gene. Herein, using a population of Chinese Australian White sheep (n = 932), we identified five novel indels in the different introns of the FecB gene. Among them, the 12-bp indel was distinguished as a splicing region variation that was completely linked to the 17-bp indel. Analysis of variance revealed that only the 10-bp indel was significantly associated with sheep litter size (P = 0.010), for which the deletion/deletion (DD) genotype was the harmful one for fecundity. Nevertheless, the combined genotypes of these five indels were significantly (P = 0.033) correlated with the litter size. These findings would provide fresh insight into developing a sounder basis to accelerate molecular breeding in sheep via DNA markers in a marker-assisted selection strategy. Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Citation

Haixia Li, Hongwei Xu, Zhanerke Akhatayeva, Hongfei Liu, Chunjian Lin, Xufei Han, Xiaofang Lu, Xianyong Lan, Qingfeng Zhang, Chuanying Pan. Novel indel variations of the sheep FecB gene and their effects on litter size. Gene. 2021 Jan 30;767:145176