Effect of gene callipyge and non-genetic factors on growth traits in Murrah calves

The present study was conducted to evaluate the influence of genetic (callipyge gene; CLPG) and non-genetic factors on growth traits in calves of Murrah buffaloes in India. Discrepancy in callipyge (CLPG) has been identified to have an impact on the growth potential in the different species of farm animals. In order to detect the prospective molecular markers for breeding to achieve desired growth, genetic polymorphism in CLPG was studied by DNA sequencing method and the associations between the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in CLPG gene and necessary growth traits were evaluated further. In Murrah calves, multiple alignment of the sequences of representative amplicons revealed no nucleotide alteration. However, a comparison of the Murrah calves CLPG gene with the Bos taurus reference sequence (Acc. no. AF401294) revealed five transition type single nucleotide changes: T89C, C102T, G122A, T173C, and A351G. Non-genetic factors such as season of birth and site of birth had significant effect (p < 0.01) on the growth rate of the targeted population of buffaloes. More research work should be conducted on large number of populations to validate the observed nucleotide changes that can be exploited as species specific signature marker.