Mva i pcr-rflp identifies single nucleotide polymorphism of the alpha-lactalbumin gene in some goat breeds reared in Turkey

Abstract

Alpha-lactalbumin plays a key role in lactose synthesis in the mammary glands of domestic animals. This study evaluated Hair (188), Saanen (82), Kilis (63), and Honamli (183) goat breeds, with the primary goal of investigating DNA polymorphism of Mva I RFLP at exon 3 of the alpha-lactalbumin gene. Polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) was employed to genotype a total of 516 goats for Mva I polymorphism of alpha-lactalbumin. In the breeds that were studied, digestion of the amplification product with the Mva I restriction enzyme revealed 2 alleles (A1 and A2) and 3 genotypes (A1A1, A1A2, and A2A2). Allelic frequencies for Hair, Honamli, Saanen, and Kilis breeds were found to be 0.87, 0.92, 0.87, and 0.85, respectively, for the A1 allele and 0.13, 0.08, 0.13, and 0.15, respectively, for the A2 allele. None of the studied breeds exhibited significant deviation from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. Consequently, this study shed light on the polymorphism of alpha-lactalbumin in 4 goat breeds. Another finding of this study was the presence of genetic polymorphism at the alpha-lactalbumin gene in Kilis and Honamli goat breeds, a fact that was not known previously.