Agriculture & Food, Volume 6, 2018

Abstract: The quantity of milk and milk fat and proteins are particularly important traits in dairy livestock. However, little is known about the regions of the genome that influence these traits in goats. This study was performed to investigate genetic variation and association analysis of diacylglycerol acyltransferase 1 (DGAT1) gene on important traits in Khalkhali dairy goats. PCR-SSCP method and Sanger sequencing were used for genotyping. In total, three different SSCP patterns (I, II, III with frequency 0.35, 0.56 and 0.10 respectively) were identified that leads to cause four mutations in exon 17 of DGAT1 gene. The mutations T21153G, C21154G cause changes serine to glycine amino acids and A21172C leads to change in Aspartic acid to Alanine amino acid and one mutation A21194T was silent. Association analysis indicated that haplotypes were related with milk yield and protein percentage of Khalkhali goat (p<0.05), but there is no relationship with milk lactose and solid matter percentage (p<0.05). Our findings indicate that polymorphisms of the caprine DGAT1 gene might be important genetic factors influencing milk traits, and the results of this study provide valuable information about the markers applicable in marker-assisted selection programs in goat breeding and production.