The product of the obesity gene, called leptin, is an important regulator of adiposity, which mainly functions via its regulation of feed intake and energy metabolism. Both obesity gene (ob gene) and leptin receptor gene (OBR gene) are thought to play a major role in controlling of body fat mass as well as body weight. The result of RT-PCR shows that levels of pig OBR mRNA are higher in hypothalamus, lung and liver, and lower expression can be detected in other tissues. Total RNA purified from 11 different organs and tissues have been hybridized with pig OBR cDNA probes. The hybridization signals are shown in 7 organs and tissues. 4.1 and 3.8 kb bands were observed from hypothalamus, whereas 3.8 and 3.5 kb bands were observed in other tissues instead. The nearly complete sequence of the extracellular domain of pig OBR gene was obtained. The homology of sequence is 89.2% between pig and human, 80.3% between pig and mouse. Alignment of the predicted ammo acid sequence of OBR in pig, human and mouse shows
We have identified DNA polymorphisms in the gene of insulin-like growth factor 2 by PCR-SSCP in a resource population, which was generated by Silky reciprocally crossing to Broilers. A C→G mutation was detected in the exon 2 (at position 71) by sequencing. This single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) was found to be associated with production traits. Chicken with BB genotype showed more chest angle width but less 3 week body weight and glandular stom- ach weight than chicken with AA genotype (P<0.05); while the heterozygote (AB genotype) chicken had more abdominal fat weight, eviscerated yield with giblet than AA homozygote chicken. Further analysis showed that there were different genetic effects on some traits between heterozygote AB (paternal allele given first) and heterozygote BA: chickens with genotype BA had more birth weight and breast weight but less abdominal fat weight than chickens with geno- type AB (P<0.05), which could be hypothetically contributed by genome imprinting. Therefore, Silky chickens were selected for production of heterozygotes to confirm whether IGF2 locus was imprinting. Progeny from heterozygote × homozygote reciprocal cross was assayed for ex- pression after the genotype was determined. The transcription of IGF2 was detected by RT-PCR-SSCP. IGF2 gene was expressed bialleleically in 1-day-old neonatal liver and 90-day-old liver, kidney, heart, and muscle of both heterozygote AB and BA chickens. Therefore, IGF2 was not an imprinting gene in chicken. The different genetic effects between the het- erozygote AB and BA remain to be elucidated.
WANG Genyu1,YAN Bingxue1,DENG Xuemei2,LI Changlü2,HU Xiaoxiang1 & Li Ning1 1.State Key Laboratory for Agrobiotechnology,China Agricultural University,Beijing 100094,China
Fattiness is an important parameter to estimate meat quality, which has high heritability. In this experiment, F2 chickens derived from Broilers crossing to Silky were used to study the effect of extracellular fatty acid binding protein (EX-FABP) gene on abdominal fat accumulation. 1.6 kb of the 5′ region of the gene was amplified by six pairs of primers, and then single nucleotide poly-morphisms (SNPs) were detected by the technique of single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) and then confirmed by sequencing. There were four nucleotides variations found, A-G at -1807, C-A at -1805, T-C at -1011 and a C insertion at -1000 respectively. The result of least square analysis suggests that the birds with BB genotype defined by the second pair of primer have a higher abdominal fat weight and abdominal fat percentage than the birds with the other genotypes (AA and AB). It implied that EX-FABP gene could be a candidate locus or linked to a major gene to significantly affect abdominal fat traits in chicken.
