Association analysis for SNPs of and genes with cashmere production performance, body measurement traits and milk production traits in Liaoning cashmere goats.

Cashmere fineness is getting thicker, which is one of the key problems in cashmere breeding, however, there have been no systematic studies on the molecular regulation of cashmere fineness. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between and gene polymorphism and production performance in Liaoning cashmere goats (LCG). The potential single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of LCG were detected by sequence alignment and PCR-Seq polymorphism of and genes and analyzed the effect of SNPs on production performance by SPSS software. Two SNPs sites (A559T and A6839G) of two genes were detected. The AA genotype of A559T locus was the dominant genotype. AG and GG at A6839G locus were the dominant genotypes. AAAA was the dominant haplotype combination. The results showed that and genes were associated with cashmere fineness of LCG, and A559T (AA) and A6839G (GG) genotypes were the preferred marker genotypes for cashmere fineness, which provided more theoretical basis for further research on cashmere fineness.