Effects of nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms of the KIAA1217, SNTA1 and LTBP1 genes on the growth traits of Ujumqin sheep Provisionally Accepted

Zhichen Liu¹ Qing Qin¹ Chongyan Zhang¹ Xiaolong Xu¹ Dongliang Dai¹ Mingxi Lan¹ Yichuan Wang¹ Jingwen Zhang¹ Dan Zhao¹ Deqing Kong¹ Tian Qin¹ Danni Wu¹ Xuedan Gong¹ Xingyu Zhou¹ Alatan Suhe² Zhixin Wang^{1, 3, 4, 5} Zhihong Liu^{1, 3, 4, 5*}

• ¹College of Animal Science, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, China
• ²Xilin Gol League East Ujumqin banner breeding sheep farm, China
• ³Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, China
• ⁴Key Laboratory of Mutton Sheep Genetics and Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture, China
• ⁵Engineering Research Center for Goat Genetics and Breeding, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, China

Sheep body size can directly reflect the growth rates and fattening rates of sheep and is also an important index for measuring the growth performance of meat sheep. In this study, high-resolution resequencing data from four sheep breeds (Dorper sheep, Suffolk sheep, Ouessant sheep, and Shetland sheep) were analyzed. Three candidate genes (KIAA1217, SNTA1, and LTBP1) related to body size were identified. To investigate the effects of nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (nsSNPs) of the three genes on growth traits such as body length and chest depth in Ujumqin sheep, 24 nsSNP polymorphisms in these 3 genes were identified in 642 healthy Ujumqin sheep by MALDI-TOF-MS, and the genotyping results were associated with growth traits. The results showed that different genotypes of the KIAA1217 g.24429511T>C locus had significant effects on the chest circumferences of Ujumqin sheep. The SNTA1 g.62222626C>A locus had different effects on the chest depths, shoulder widths and rump widths of Ujumqin sheep. This study showed that these two sites can be used for marker-assisted selection, which will be beneficial for future precision molecular breeding.