Relationships between growth characteristics and GDF9 gene polymorphisms in Awassi sheep

The Awassi sheep, a breed with a distinctive fat tail, is bred specifically in the south-eastern region in Turkey. It has proven its adaptability to the hot environment of this region, especially in the provinces of & Scedil;anl & imath;urfa, Hatay and Gaziantep, which are close to the Syrian border. The aim of this study was to investigate the SNP polymorphisms in the GDF9 gene/exon2 using DNA sequencing. In addition, the study investigated the relationships between SNP genotypes and growth traits, in particular birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW) and weight at the end of the grazing season (GSW), in Awassi sheep. Four different flocks with a total of 131 Awassi lambs were used. PCR was used to amplify exon2 of the GDF9 gene region, which has a length of 815 base pairs (bp), from the genomic DNA of the Awassi sheep. Thus, four new single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified. The results showed that although the effects of SNP2 and SNP4 on body weight (BW) were statistically significant, only SNP4 had a significant effect on weaning weight (WW) (P < 0.05). In addition, SNP1 and SNP3 were found to have no significant effect on any developmental trait in the dataset.