QUANTITATIVE GENES SEQUENCING IN KARADI EWES ASSOCIATED WITH MILK YIELD TRAITS.

The objective of present study was to investigate sequencing of four genes (AlphaS1-casein, alphaS2-casein, beta lactoglobulin and Major histocompatibility complex) that related to milk traits in Karadi sheep. A total of 300 ewes from three flocks were studied. The results revealed which are include effects of lamb's sex, dam's age and month of lambing were not significant on the milk traits except the ewes flock has significant effect on daily milk yield. The Best Linear Unbiased Prediction value for all ewes concerning daily milk yield, protein and fat percentages ranged from -10.5293 to 10.7504, -2.0546 to 2.0097% and -1.7033 to 1.4067%, respectively. The DNA sequencing results show that there are differences between ewes with high and low milk production in AlphaS1-casein, alphaS2-casein, beta lactoglobulin and Major histocompatibility complex loci sequences these differences reflected by milk performance of ewes in two groups, ewes in high group produced 300% more daily milk than ewes in low group (355.8 vs. 102.8 g/day). In conclusion results showed that there are agreements between Best Linear Unbiased Prediction value with DNA sequencing results in the select best animal and the selection process with molecular technique can play a major positive and rapid role to improvement and increasing milk production in this breed of sheep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]