DEVELOPING MEAT PRODUCTIVITY IN BULL CALVES OF DIFFERENT DGAT1 GENOTYPES

The given research aims to study the way meat productivity in special-purpose beef bull calves of different DGAT1 genotypes is developed. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that an assessment of the meat productivity of Hereford and Limousin bulls of different DGAT1 genotypes was conducted for the first time. Calves were cultivated using elements of resource-saving technology. The research subject was Hereford male young stock (91 heads) and Limousin bull calves (109 heads), which were genotyped by SNP DGAT1-K232A. Live weight, average daily gains, and body size and conformation indices were analyzed. Hematological values and carcass quality of bull calves of different genotypes were studied. As a result of genotyping, young animals of both breeds had a similar distribution of genotypes (DGAT1KK>DGAT1KA>DGAT1AA) and alleles (DGAT1K>DGAT1A). There was no effect of the studied gene polymorphism on growth, body development, and hematological parameters, as bull calves of different DGAT1 genotypes did not show a significant difference between weight and linear growth, blood morphological parameters, the content of protein, and its fractions. SNP DGAT1-K232A was found to affect fat deposition. Thus, carcasses of both studied breeds of DGAT1K genotype had a significantly higher content of internal raw fat, and fat yield was (P<0.05) than carcasses of DGAT1AA genotype bull calves. Therefore, genotyping by SNP DGAT1-K232A can be used in the selection of special-purpose beef cattle as an additional criterion to produce meat of a higher energy value

NotI flanking sequences: a tool for gene discovery and verification of the human genome

A set of 22 551 unique human NotI flanking sequences (16.2 Mb) was generated. More than 40% of the set had regions with significant similarity to known proteins and expressed sequences. The data demonstrate that regions flanking NotI sites are less likely to form nucleosomes efficiently and resemble promoter regions. The draft human genome sequence contained 55.7% of the NotI flanking sequences, Celera’s database contained matches to 57.2% of the clones and all public databases (including non-human and previously sequenced NotI flanks) matched 89.2% of the NotI flanking sequences (identity ≥90% over at least 50 bp, data from December 2001). The data suggest that the shotgun sequencing approach used to generate the draft human genome sequence resulted in a bias against cloning and sequencing of NotI flanks. A rough estimation (based primarily on chromosomes 21 and 22) is that the human genome contains 15 000–20 000 NotI sites, of which 6000–9000 are unmethylated in any particular cell. The results of the study suggest that the existing tools for computational determination of CpG islands fail to identify a significant fraction of functional CpG islands, and unmethylated DNA stretches with a high frequency of CpG dinucleotides can be found even in regions with low CG content