The Calpastatin Gene Polymorphism Study and Its Effect on Early Body Weight Traits in Zandi Sheep

The goal of this study was investigation of the calpastatin gene polymorphism and its effect on early body weight traits in Zandi sheep by polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCRRFLP) method. Calpastatin is the main inhibitors of calpaincalpastatin enzyme system that play an important role in regulating the protein regeneration process. Genomic DNA was extracted by whole blood samples from 124 randomly selected Zandi breed sheep using salting out method. Birth weight, weight on 150 days old and daily weight gain from birth to 150 days old were recorded. The exon and intron 1 of ovine calpastatin gene were amplified to produce a 622 bp fragment. The PCR products were digested with MspI restriction enzyme and electrophoresised on agarose gel. Results showed 80.6% and 19.4% allele frequencies for A and B alleles and 65.32%, 4.04% and 30.64% genotype frequencies for AA, BB and AB genotypes, respectively. X^2 and G^2 tests showed the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for studied locus. The effect of calpastatin genotype on growth traits was insignificant, but genotype BB had the best performance among all the three traits, which indicates the better performance of normal allele (B) than mutant allele (A) for these traits.