Bovine STAT5A Gene POLYmorphism Analysis and Its association with milk composition traits in Jersey cows

Abstract

 Abstract—In mammals, the STAT proteins (signal transducers and activators of transcription) are a family of cytoplasmic transcription factors mediating the actions of many peptide hormones and cytokines within target cells. In particular, STAT5A is a crucial mediator in the lactogenic hormone response being a candidate marker for milk traits in farm animals. In the present paper, the T→C nucleotide polymorphism at position 12743 in exon 16 of the bovine STAT5A gene was analyzed with PCR-RFLP in a sample of Jersey cows. The purposes of this investigation were to determine the frequencies of the variant alleles and the genotypes of this SNP in Jersey cows and to verify its association with some milk production traits. All the three possible genotypes were identified in the studied population. The observed frequencies of C and T alleles were 0.147 and 0.853 repectively. The TT genotype was the most frequent followed by TC and CC ones. No significant differences between the TT and TC genotypes were found considering MY, FY PC and PY. On the other side, the difference concerning the fat content of milk produced by cows belonging to TC and TT groups was found significant at the statistical analysis: in particular, milk from TT animals had a higher fat content in comparison with that of TC ones (4.55 vs. 4.14%, respectively; Index Terms—Jersey breed, milk production, SNP, STAT5A gene.