绵羊羊角形态与遗传调控机制的研究进展

绵羊是较早驯化的家畜之一，可为人类提供肉、毛、奶等产品，因而在我国畜牧产业中占有重要的地位。由于各地自然环境的差异和社会需要的不同，经长期的选择形成了数百个外表特征和生理习性各具特色的绵羊品种。羊角作为绵羊品种的特征性表型，承担着双重功能，发达的羊角不仅有利于公羊个体提高其在种群内的地位，拥有优先交配权，还可以有效抵御天敌的攻击，使群体免受捕食伤害；然而，随着规模化养殖的推广，羊角的存在已不利于舍内饲养管理，进而对绵羊品种的培育工作提出了新要求。目前，羊角虽在实际生产和品种培育工作中受到广泛关注，但其形态多样性及遗传调控机制的研究尚显不足。本文根据我国现有绵羊品种，对角的数量和形态、发育过程、遗传调控机制等方面的研究进行了综述，不仅能为后期鉴别绵羊羊角多样性的突变位点和主效基因提供参考，也可为绵羊的新品种培育奠定相关的理论基础。

Research Progress of Sheep Horn Morphology and Genetic Regulation Mechanism

Sheep is one of the earlier domesticated livestock, which can provide human with meat, wool, milk and other products, and occupies an important position in Chinese animal husbandry industry. Due to the differences in the natural environment and social needs in various regions, hundreds of sheep breeds have been formed in the long-term selection process, each with its own characteristics in appearance and physiological habits. As a phenotypic characteristic of sheep breeds, the horns bear the dual functions:the developed horns not only help the male sheep to improve its position in the population, have priority to mate, but also can effectively resist attacks from natural enemies and protect its population from predation. However, with the popularization of large-scale breeding, the existence of sheep horns is not conducive to the feeding management in the house, which puts forward new requirements for the breeding of sheep breeds. At present, although sheep horns have received extensive attention in actual production and breed breeding, the research on its morphological diversity and genetic regulation mechanism is still insufficient. This review focused on the number and morphology of horns, development process, genetic regulation mechanism and other aspects of current sheep breeds in China, which can not only provide a reference for identifying the mutation sites and major genes affecting sheep horns diversity in the later work, but also lay the theoretical foundation for the breeding of new sheep breeds.