POLYMORPHISMS OF THE IGF1 GENE IN RUSSIAN SHEEP BREEDS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON SOME MEAT PRODUCTION PARAMETERS

Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) plays an important role in the growth and development of muscle tissue in animals. Research into the structure of IGF1 in sheep may provide important information for genomic marker assisted selection used to increase meat production. We investigated the structure of the IGF1 gene and the effect of polymorphisms on lifetime meat productivity performance in the Russian Soviet Merino sheep breed. Alleles were detected in 15 rams using NimbleGen sequencing technology by Roche (USA). 18 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were found in this breed. Only one SNP – c.-81T>C – was found in the coding region. All other SNPs were located in introns 5’UTR and 3’UTR. The c.-5363C>T, c.-5188G>C, c.-5186G>A and c.-4088G>A polymorphisms, presented together in two alleles of the gene, correlate with a high live weight in a heterozygous state. The synonymous substitution of c.81T>C in the exon was not found to have any influence on the analyzed meat production parameters. One of the detected SNPs – c.-91A>C – had a positive correlation with weight, height, croup parameters and other attributes in rams.