Abstract

A study was conducted to detect polymorphism of butyrophilin (BTN) gene in sheep, cattle and buffalo, and to explore the nucleotide variability amongst them. Alu I, Hae III and Rsa I PCR-RFLP was carried out to reveal polymorphism at BTN gene spanning over part of exon 8 (502 bp). Alu I and Rsa I RFLP showed monomorohism at this locus while Hae III RFLP revealed polymorphism. In Hae III study, three genotypes, namely AA, BB and AB and two alleles A and B were found in sheep as well as in other species. The frequencies of the three genotypes AA, BB and AB in Karakul and Muzaffarnagari sheep were found as 0.63, 0.21 and 0.16, and 0.69, 0.17 and 0.14. In cattle and buffalo the frequencies were observed as 0.81, 0.15 and 0.04, and 0.75, 0.14 and 0.11 for AA, BB and AB genotypes, respectively. The frequencies of A and B allele in Karakul and Muzaffarnagari sheep were determined as 0.71 and 0.29, and 0.76 and 0.24, respectively. The allelic frequencies in cattle and buffalo were 0.83 and 0.17, and 0.81 and 0.19 for A and B allele, respectively. The nucleotides, which have been substituted from allele A to B, were found to be C to G (71st nucleotide), C to T (86th nucleotide), A to G (217th nucleotide), G to A (258th nucleotide), A to C (371st nucleotide) and C to T (377th nucleotide). The sequence variability between sheep and cattle was found at 143rd, 179th, 237th, 371st, 389th, 418th, 435th and 469th locations. The differences of nucleotides between sheep and buffalo were observed at 35th, 143rd, 170th, 240th, 282nd, 389th, 435th and 469th.