Effect of Breed, Sex and Age on Body Weight and Linear Body Measurements in Punjab Goat Breeds

Current study was performed to investigate the effect of i. breed, sex and age on body weight and morphometric measurement traits and ii. phenotypic correlation of morphometric measurement traits to body weight. Data on body weight and morphometric measurement traits i.e., live body weight, body length, wither height, pubic bone length, heart girth and chest width were collected from 792 individuals from seven goat breed of Punjab including five strains of Beetal breed; Barbari, Dera Din Pannah, Nachi, Teddi, Pahari and Pothwari. Body weight was measured in kilograms with the help of weighing balance and morphometric measurement traits were measured with measuring tape in centimeters (cm). Mixed Procedure with Restricted Maximum Likelihood methodology in SAS University Edition was used to investigate the effect of sex, breed and age on different body measurements of seven goat breeds under investigation. The findings revealed that sex had significant effect on body weight and morphometric measurement traits except for pubic bone length among all the studied goat breeds. There was also a significant effect of breed on body weight and body measurements. Beetal had a maximum adult weight (44.49±0.48 kg) followed by Nachi (37.45±2.32 kg), Daira Din Panah (37.24± 2.36 kg), Barbari (36.99±2.21 kg), Pothwari (34.25±2.67 kg), Teddi (23.52±1.55 kg) and Pahari (20.81±1.78 kg). A strong positive correlation of body weight with all morphometric measurements was observed i.e., to heart girth (0.895), to body length (0.833), to body height (0.789), to chest length (0.741) and to pubic bone length (0.664). It was concluded that variations in body measurements and body weight depended largely on age, sex and breed. The results from the current study might have possible implications in launching proper selection program for improving meat potential of native goat breeds.This article is published as Moaeen-ud-Din, Muhammad, Raja Danish Muner, Muhammad Sajjad Khan, and James M. Reecy. "Effect of Breed, Sex and Age on Body Weight and Linear Body Measurements in Punjab Goat Breeds." Pak. J. Agri. Sci 61, no. 1 (2024): 243-250. Copyright 2024 Pakistan Association of Advancement in Agricultural Sciences. This work is licensed as Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Genome wide association study in goat identified novel SNPs and genes for growth

A higher body weight at a younger age is an economically important trait for profitable goat farming. This study was focused on the identification of regions of the genome that harbor genetic variants associated with body weight using the Illumina GoatSNP50K Bead Chip. A total of 631 purebred Beetal goats (151 males and 480 females) were recorded for body weight, age and body measurement and then genotyped. Genome wide association analysis was carried out with GEMMA. After application of quality control filters with Plink 1.9, call rate less or equal than 0.9, minor allele frequency less than 0.05 and HWE P value lesser than 0.001, 594 animals and 45,744 SNPs were retained for association analysis. The association analysis for body weight with covariates of age, sex and morphometric measurements and contemporary group yielded 10 significant SNPs (P = -log10e-4 to -log10e-6). Three associated SNPs were within genes i.e., BTAF1, NTM and GRID1 when blasted against ARS1(accession GCA_001704415.1). Moreover, some associated SNPs were localized close to CEP78, ROBO1, ZFP36L2, SPTLC3, CTR9 and ZFHX3 genes. The study identified SNPs and genes with potential role in growth of goat.This preprint is made available through Research Square at doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-2966814/v1. Posted with permission. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License

Development of amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers for the identification of Cholistani cattle

<p>The identification issue of livestock can be resolved by using molecular identification tools that are acceptable to preserve and maintain pure breeds worldwide. The application of a molecular identification methodology is more important for developing nations, e.g., Pakistan, where uncontrolled crossbreeding has become a common practice and the import of exotic animals and germplasm is ever increasing. This presents a risk to local breeds as also stated by the FAO. Therefore, the current study was designed to develop standard molecular markers for Cholistani cattle to ascertain their purity for breeding purpose. In this study 50 and 48 unrelated males were sampled for Cholistani and each crossbred cattle, respectively. Candidate molecular markers present in Cholistani but absent in crossbred cattle and vice versa were detected using the amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) method. Eleven markers were developed and were converted to single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers for genotyping. The allele frequencies in both breeds were determined for discrimination ability using polymerase-chain-reaction–restriction-fragment-polymorphism (PCR-AFLP). The probability of identifying the Cholistani breed was 0.905 and the probability of misjudgment was 0.073 using a panel of markers. The identified markers can ascertain the breed purity and are likely to extend the facility for breed purity testing before entering into a genetic improvement program in the country.</p&gt

Development of amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers for the identification of Cholistani cattle

<p>The identification issue of livestock can be resolved by using molecular identification tools that are acceptable to preserve and maintain pure breeds worldwide. The application of a molecular identification methodology is more important for developing nations, e.g., Pakistan, where uncontrolled crossbreeding has become a common practice and the import of exotic animals and germplasm is ever increasing. This presents a risk to local breeds as also stated by the FAO. Therefore, the current study was designed to develop standard molecular markers for Cholistani cattle to ascertain their purity for breeding purpose. In this study 50 and 48 unrelated males were sampled for Cholistani and each crossbred cattle, respectively. Candidate molecular markers present in Cholistani but absent in crossbred cattle and vice versa were detected using the amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) method. Eleven markers were developed and were converted to single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers for genotyping. The allele frequencies in both breeds were determined for discrimination ability using polymerase-chain-reaction–restriction-fragment-polymorphism (PCR-AFLP). The probability of identifying the Cholistani breed was 0.905 and the probability of misjudgment was 0.073 using a panel of markers. The identified markers can ascertain the breed purity and are likely to extend the facility for breed purity testing before entering into a genetic improvement program in the country.</p&gt