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Despite the high demand for goat meat, the quantity of meat that is produced from the indigenous goats is low and insufficient to meet the demand. This is due to their small body size and inherent low genetic potential for growth coupled with poor management especially feeding. Improvement of goat productivity through selection takes long time to achieve and may be difficult for some traits. Information on polymorphisms in candidate genes for growth
including myostatin gene could be used with pedigree information in marker assisted selection to get high genetic response more quickly. This study assessed polymorphisms of the intron 2 and exon 3 of the myostatin gene in Pare, Sonjo, Blended and Boer goats. Only one singleton polymorphic site T298C was detected in the Boer goat population and all other goats were
monomorphic. Two alleles, T and C were detected in Boer goats with frequencies of 0.98 and 0.02, respectively, and two genotypes TT and TC with frequency of 0.97 and 0.03, respectively. Allele T was fixed in the Blended, Pare and Sonjo populations. Blended goats were heavier at all stages of growth than Pare and Sonjo goats. However, due to lack of polymorphism in the three goat populations the association between the alleles of the myostatin gene and
growth performance could not be confirmed. It can be concluded that there are variation in growth performance among the Blended, Pare and Sonjo goats but the variation could not be associated with the myostatin gene. Other genes for growth could be responsible for the observed variation. |
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