Abstract

Butyrophilin plays an important role in secretion of milk lipid. The present study describes polymorphism of butyrophilin gene. This is the first study of butyrophilin gene polymorphism in Najdi cattle of Iran. We used the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique to screen for DNA polymorphism in 109 cattle. In all cattle, we amplified an 863 fragment consisting of part of exon 8. The amplified fragment digested with HaeIII restriction endonuclease and subjected to electrophoretic separation in ethidium bromid-strained 3% agarose gel. Two alleles were observed, A and B. Five HaeIII restriction site were found in the A allele as 371, 231, 185, 83 and 32 bp fragments. In the B allele, 371 bp were replaced with 338 bp. Three genotypes were observed, Frequencies were 73.4, 25.68 and 0.92% for AA, AB and BB, respectively. This gives frequencies of 0.86 and 0.14 for A and B alleles.

Key words: Butyrophilin gene, polymorphism, PCR-RFLP.