Ren Hongying, Tang Qi, Xue Tao, Wang Qian, Xu Hongwei, Zhang Qingfeng, Pan Chuanying
Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Shaanxi Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, China.
College of Life Science and Engineering, Northwest Minzu University, Lanzhou, China.
Anim Biotechnol. 2022 Dec;33(7):1533-1538. doi: 10.1080/10495398.2021.1914071. Epub 2021 May 4.
Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor (AHR) is a member of the PER-ARNT-SIM (PAS) family, which could mediate various biological processes, for instance, the balance of the immune system, cell proliferation, differentiation, vascular tissue remodeling and reproduction ability regulation. A previous research showed that the gene exerted important functions on the pig reproduction, implying that it could serve as a candidate gene related to animal reproductive traits. Here, the aim of this work was to identify potential insertion/deletion (indel) mutations of the gene in three sheep breeds and analyze the associations between these mutations and reproductive traits. Results showed that a 24-bp indel was uncovered three genotypes (II, ID and DD) in the Australian White sheep (AuW) and Lanzhou fat-tail sheep (LZFT) population, while there were only two genotypes (ID and DD) in Luxi black-headed sheep (LXBH). Moreover, the Fisher's exact test showed that the 24-bp indel mutation was significantly associated with litter size and live litter size in AuW sheep (Fisher's < 0.05). Therefore, the 24-bp indel of sheep gene can contribute to sheep marker-assisted selection breeding and further improve the sheep reproductive performance.
芳烃受体（AHR）是PER-ARNT-SIM（PAS）家族的成员之一，它可以介导多种生物学过程，例如免疫系统的平衡、细胞增殖、分化、血管组织重塑以及繁殖能力调控。先前的一项研究表明，该基因对猪的繁殖具有重要作用，这意味着它可能作为与动物繁殖性状相关的候选基因。在此，本研究的目的是鉴定三个绵羊品种中该基因潜在的插入/缺失（indel）突变，并分析这些突变与繁殖性状之间的关联。结果显示，在澳大利亚白羊（AuW）和兰州大尾羊（LZFT）群体中发现了一个24bp的indel，存在三种基因型（II、ID和DD），而在鲁西黑头羊（LXBH）中只有两种基因型（ID和DD）。此外，Fisher精确检验表明，24bp的indel突变与AuW绵羊的产羔数和存活羔羊数显著相关（Fisher's < 0.05）。因此，绵羊基因的该24bp indel可有助于绵羊标记辅助选择育种，并进一步提高绵羊的繁殖性能。
