Growth hormone gene in llama (Lama glama): characterisation and SNPs identification

DAVERIO, M.S., F. DI ROCCO AND ARBELETCHE VIDAL RIOJA L.

Fibre production in South American camelids and other fibre animals

Wageningen Academic Publishers

Lugar: Wageningen, the Netherlands; Año: 2011; p. 135 - 139

The South American Camelids are source of meat, fiber, leather, transport and other productsuseful for the economy of Argentine northwest populations. Breeding and explotation of thellama and alpaca has experimented a notable increased and with it the interest to improve theperformance of these taxa. The Growth Hormone (GH), a peptide hormone synthesized andsecreted by the pituitary gland affects a variety of physiological parameters such as growthperformance, milk production and carcass composition. In this study, we characterized theGH gene of llamas from Argentina and identified several single nucleotide polymorphisms(SNPs). Like in other mammals, llama GH gene comprises five exons and four introns.Comparison with the coding sequences of the camel, whale, dolphin, pig, cow and sheepshowed 99,1%, 96,5%, 96.2%, 94,8%, 90.6% and 90,3% similarity, respectively. Introns wereless conserved, particularly intron C which in llama was considerably shorter than in the othercompared species.Sequencing of GH gene in a sample of 20 llamas allowed to identified 8 SNP, mainly locatedin introns. Nevertheless, one of them was found in the 3´region.We conclude that the polymorphisms such as the ones presented here could be used fordeveloping genetic markers to assay the effect of different genotypes on economicallyimportant traits.