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The mitogen-activated protein kinase 8 (MAPK8), resistin (RETN), 11 beta hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase isoform 1 (HSD11B1) and protein kinase B Akt2 (AKT2) genes are all genes known to affect insulin signalling and have been implicated in the progression of obesity and type 2 diabetes in humans. In this study, polymorphisms in the porcine diabetes related MAPK8, RETN, HSD11B1 and AKT2 genes were identified, mapped and their associations with phenotypic measurements in swine were analysed. Polymorphisms detected in the MAPK8, RETN and HSD11B1 loci were used to genotype a Berkshire-Yorkshire pig breed reference family. Using linkage analysis, RETN, HSD11B1 and MAPK8 genes were mapped to pig chromosomes 2, 9 and 14, respectively, while the AKT2 gene was physically mapped to pig chromosome 6q21. Results presented here suggest associations between the polymorphisms in the MAPK8, RETN and HSD11B1 genes with several phenotypic measurements, including fat deposition traits in the pig. Because these genes have been implicated in obesity and diabetes in humans, and this study suggests associations with fat related traits, further research on these genes in swine may provide useful information on genetic factors underlying lean pork production.

We have developed software, called Expeditor, that can be used to combine known gene structure information from human and coding sequence information from farm animal species for a streamlined primer design in target farm animal species. This software has many utilities, which include PCR-based SNP discovery for identification of genes/markers associated with economically important traits in farm animals, comparative mapping analysis, and evolution studies. The use of this software helps minimize tedious manual operations and reduces the chance of errors by more conventional approaches.

This paper reports the variation in five blood proteins from five populations of sheep found in Kenya. Blood samples were collected from a total of 309 adult sheep of both sexes in Kwale, Makueni and Kakamega districts for the fat-tailed sheep and in Isiolo district for the fat-rumped hair sheep. Fine-wooled Merino sheep were used in this study as the reference population. Transferrin, esterase-A and esterase-C were polymorphic in all the populations investigated, while albumin was monomorphic for the S allele in the fat-tailed sheep and haemoglobin was fixed for the B allele in the Kwale, Makueni and Isiolo populations. Phylogenies derived from the pairwise genetic distance estimates showed a clear separation between the indigenous sheep populations and the exotic Merino. However, the topology of the former showed rather poor consistency with their morphological classification based on the localization of their fat deposits, namely fat-tailed or fat-rumped hair sheep.