title: Nerve Growth Factor gene ovarian expression, polymorphism identification, and association with litter size in goats.
abstract: The Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) plays an important role in reproduction by augmenting folliculogenesis. In this study, the coding regions of caprine NGF gene were analyzed to detect single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), their association with litter size, and the relative ovarian expression of NGF gene in the two indigenous goat breeds of South India viz., the prolific Malabari and less-prolific Attappady Black. The sequence analysis of the third exon containing the entire open reading frame of NGF gene was observed to be of 808 bp with one nonsynonymous mutation at 217th position. Later, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed to amplify a region of 188 bp covering the region carrying the detected mutation. The genomic DNAs from the goats under study (n = 277) were subjected to PCR and single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP). On analysis, four diplotypes viz., AA, AB, AC, and AD were observed with respective frequencies of 0.50, 0.22, 0.27, and 0.01. Sequencing of the representative samples revealed an additional synonymous mutation, i.e., g.291C>A. Statistical analysis indicated that NGF diplotypes and the SNP g.217G>A were associated with litter size in goats (P < 0.05). Relative expression of NGF gene was significantly higher in the ovaries of goats with history of multiple than single births (P < 0.05). The results of the present study suggest the significant effect of the NGF gene on litter size in goats and identified SNPs would benefit the selection of prolific animals in future marker-assisted breeding programs. The two novel PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphisms designed, based on the detected SNPs, would help in the rapid screening of large number of animals in a breeding population for identifying individual animals with desired genetic characteristics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Breeding, Genetics and Biostatistics, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Thrissur, Kerala, India. Electronic address: naicy@kvasu.ac.in.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Naicy
authors.affiliation: Centre for Advanced Studies in Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Thrissur, Kerala, India.
authors.forename: R T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Venkatachalapathy
authors.affiliation: Centre for Advanced Studies in Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Thrissur, Kerala, India.
authors.forename: T V
authors.initials: TV
authors.lastname: Aravindakshan
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Breeding, Genetics and Biostatistics, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Thrissur, Kerala, India.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Radhika
authors.affiliation: Centre for Advanced Studies in Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Thrissur, Kerala, India.
authors.forename: K C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Raghavan
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterinary Microbiology, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Thrissur, Kerala, India.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mini
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Nutrition, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Thrissur, Kerala, India.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shyama
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005260:Female; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000502:physiology*; D005819:Genetic Markers; D006041:Goats / Q000502:physiology*; D008098:Litter Size / Q000235:genetics*; D020932:Nerve Growth Factor / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D010053:Ovary / Q000502:physiology*; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic
chemical_list: D005819:Genetic Markers; D020932:Nerve Growth Factor
keywords: Attappady Black; Gene expression; Litter size; Malabari; Nerve Growth Factor; single-nucleotide polymorphism