Polymorphisms of Lpin2 Gene and Its Association with Tail Type and Slaughter Traits in Sheep

This study was aimed to explore the effects of genetic variations of Lpin2 gene on tail type and slaughter traits in sheep. Two breeds of fat-tailed sheep such as Guangling Large Tailed sheep and Small Tailed Han sheep were chosen to identify the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 5' non-coding region of Lpin2 gene by using direct DNA sequencing, and the associations between SNPs and tail type and slaughter traits were analyzed. The results showed that three novel SNPs were found in 5' non-coding region about 1 200 bp upstream sequence from start codon ATG in Lpin2 gene, namely NC_019480.2: g.－663 dup ATT (SNP1), g.－388 T > C (SNP2) and g.－330 T > G (SNP3), sequencing data revealed that the trinucleotide ATT repeat expansion at SNP1 was cope number variation (CNV) of short tandem repeats (STR), the mutation frequency was significant higher in Guangling Large Tailed sheep than that in Small Tailed Han sheep (P<0.05), and caused the significant decreasing in carcass weight and dressing percentage in Guangling Large Tailed sheep (P<0.05), however this variation exhibited non-significant effects on the slaughter traits in Small Tailed Han sheep (P>0.05). SNP2 and SNP3 could be constructed into a haplotype block while the haplotypes didn't significantly affect the examined traits in two sheep breeds. This finding would provide references for marker assisted selection of the sheep meat quality traits.