PCR-SSCP Analysis of Keratin - Associated Protein (KAP) 6.1 Gene in Nilagiri and Dorset x Nilagiri Cross Breeds of Sheep

The present study was investigated to detect polymorphic patterns of the keratin-associated protein (KAP) 6.1 gene in 54 numbers of Nilagiri and 20 numbers of Dorset x Nilagiri breeds of sheep. DNA was isolated and amplified with ovine specific primers of KAP 6.1 gene. Allele frequencies of A, B, C, D and E was 0.79, 0.08, 0.15, 0.07 and 0.08 respectively with departure from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. KAP 6.1 gene was found to have a high degree of homozygosity (0.6668), and an effective number of alleles (Ne) for KAP 6.1 gene was 1.7007 in Nilagiri breeds of sheep, while the PIC value was 0.3909 with positive (0.1908) FIS value. From the study, PCR - SSCP analysis of KAP 6.1 gene revealed polymorphism in Nilagiri breeds whereas in Dorset x Nilagiri crossbred sheep two genotypes for the A/B with no polymorphism detected.