Association between AA-NAT gene polymorphism and reproductive performance in sheep

Abstract

Arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferase (AA-NAT) is critical enzyme in Melatonin (MLT) biosynthesis for MLT regulating the animal seasonal breeding. In this study, DNA sequencing methods were applied to detect the polymorphisms of the AA-NAT gene in 179 Chinese sheep belonging to two non-seasonal reproduction breeds and two seasonal reproduction breeds. One mutation at exon 3 (NM_001009461:c.486A > G) was firstly described at the sheep AA-NAT locus. Hence, we described the SmaI PCR-RFLP method for detecting EX3 486A > G mutation, frequencies of the AA-NAT-G allele varied from 0.871 to 0.908 in two non-seasonal reproduction breeds and 0.517 to 0.578 in two seasonal reproduction breeds. The associations of SmaI polymorphism with estrus traits was analyzed in non-seasonal reproduction breeds sheep and seasonal reproduction breeds sheep, the significant statistical results were found between them, the GG genotype frequencies was higher in non-seasonal reproduction breeds (p < 0.001), while, the GA genotype frequencies was higher in seasonal reproduction breeds (p < 0.05). Hence, the EX3 486A > G mutation could facilitate association analysis and serve as a genetic marker for Chinese sheep breeding and genetics.