Investigation of polymorphism in CTSK gene and its association with carcass traits and blood parameters in Afshari×Booroola Merino sheep

In order to study of polymorphism in exon 6 of CTSK gene and its association with carcass traits and blood parameters in Afshari×Booroola Merino sheep, blood samples were collected from 97 lambs of animal husbandry station of Zanjan University. DNA was extracted using phenol-chloroform method and a fragment of 500 bp from CTSK gene was amplified with polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The binding patterns for all animals were determined by single stranded conformation polymorphism (SSCP) and then sequenced. For this gene, two binding patterns of GG and GA were identified with the frequencies of 0.74 and 0.26, respectively. Chi-square test (χ2) showed that this population was not in the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Results showed that genotype of GG was significantly associated with increased of tail weight, muscle thickness and muscle cross-sectional area and decreased of cholesterol and VLDL traits. However the more investigations with larger sample size are necessary in future for usage from this locus in breeding programs based on marker-assisted selection.