Detection of Novel Variations Related to Litter Size in Gene of Luzhong Mutton Sheep ().

Litter size is an important economic trait in the mutton sheep industry. is one of the key candidate genes for litter size in sheep. In this study, the entire ORF region of was sequenced in 154 Luzhong mutton ewes, and the novel variations were determined. The association between polymorphism in and litter size was analyzed using a general linear model. Six out of a total of thirteen variations were identified to be novel. Association analysis indicated that four (SNPs ENSOART00000010201.1:c.352+342C>A, c.352+1232T>C, c.352+1165A>G and c.353-2036T>A) were significantly associated with litter size. The joint analysis among three major genes (, and ) exhibited significant interaction effects in three combinations ( and c.352+1232T>C of ; and c.352+1165A>G of ; c.352+342C>A of and ENSOART00000014382.1:c.994G>A of ). For the SNPs c.352+1232T>C and c.352+342C>A, the global distribution of allele frequencies showed that the highest variation frequency occurs in Western Europe. In conclusion, the results demonstrated that is a major gene for litter size in Luzhong mutton sheep and candidate SNPs associated with litter size were identified.