NEW CANDIDATE GENES ASSOCIATED WITH SHOULDER HEIGHT OF SHEEP OF RUSSIAN MEAT MERINO BREED

The search for candidate genes and genetic markers associated with economically valuable traits of productive animals is of great scientific and practical importance for the agro-industrial complex. Of particular interest are studies aimed at finding associations for parametres which characterize features of build and growth of animals. The aim of this work was to search for single nucleotide polymorphisms and candidate genes associated with height at the shoulder, one of the main measurements that allows to judge the conformation characteristics of sheep. The object of the study was 12-month-old Russian Merino meat rams (n = 50), bred on the Stavropol Territory. Animal genotyping was performed using DNA biochips of Ovine Infinium HD BeadChip 600K; genome-wide association analysis was performed using PLINK V.1.07 software. In the course of the work done, significant associations were found between the height at the shoulder and single nucleotide substitutions of 3, 10 and 18 chromosomes of sheep of Russian meat merino breed. Polymorphisms are located in the region of introns of protein-coding genes (rs422409900, rs413412092) and intergenic regions (rs414158152, rs430384069, rs415673748). A negative regression coefficient is observed in five analyzed substitutions. Location of analyzed substitutions in relation to the latest Oar_rambouillet_v1.0 genome annotation allowed to reveal 4 new candidate genes associated with height at the shoulder of sheep: RALGAPA1, MEIS1, AFTPH, SLC25A21. Further studies should be aimed at confirming the effect of the proposed candidate genes on the phenotype of animals, as well as confirming the relationship of rs414158152, rs430384069, rs42240990, rs415673748, and rs413412092 polymorphisms with conformation parametres of sheep.