Ovine ENSOARG00020011332 Rs427117280-GG Provides an İncrease in Weaning Weight and Average Daily Gain Until Weaning weight in A Multi-Breed Sheep Population

Abstract

Lamb meat, which is consumed as widely as pork, beef and poultry, has a very important place in red-meat consumption worldwide. Sheep can survive without consuming green fodder in geographies with poor pastures and very harsh continental climate conditions. In lambs reared for meat purposes, the average daily weight gain (ADG) from birth to weaning and their live weight at weaning are crucial economic traits that affect the profitability of breeders. Additionally, lamb live weight at weaning age could be vital for the lamb's subsequent live weight gain and survival rate. Therefore, improving the live weight at weaning age is desired to increase lamb meat production. However, information on animals' genetic background that affects the weaning weight is limited in many sheep breeds. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of the rs427117280 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) on chromosome 2 (OAR2) with live weight gain at different time points (live weight at birth and on the 30th, 60th and 90th days post-birth) in indigenous sheep breeds (Akkaraman, Savak Akkaraman, Morkaraman, Karayaka and Ivesi) in Türkiye. In total, 1973 lambs were genotyped using Custom TaqMan SNP genotyping assays for the rs427117280 SNP. Association analysis showed that lambs with a GG genotype had the highest weight on the 90th day (BW90) and the highest ADG from birth to the 90th day (ADGB-90) (P≤0.01). It was concluded that rs427117280 could be considered as a candidate quantitative trait nucleotide (QTN) for the BW90 and ADGB-90 traits. Therefore, these findings suggested that variation in the rs427117280 SNP might be used as novel genetic marker for improving pre-weaning and weaning growth traits in sheep.