Heritability of Body Weight, Growth Rate Indices and Their Association with Insulin-Like Growth Factor-2 Gene Polymorphism in Purebred Nigerian Indigenous Chickens and their Crosses with Marshal Chickens

Abstract

This research was conducted to estimate heritability of body weight and growth rate indices and also to determine their association with insulin-like growth factor-2 genes (IGF-2) polymorphism in purebred Nigerian indigenous chickens and their crosses with Marshal chickens. A total of 300 progenies were generated from the mating of three genotypes of F5 generation of Nigerian indigenous chickens (Normal feather (N), Frizzle feather (F), Naked neck (NN)) and Marshal (M) chickens. Blood samples were collected at twenty weeks for DNA extraction and IGF-2 gene amplification. IGF-2 gene was digested by restriction enzyme (Pst1) and genotyped using restriction fragment length polymorphism method. Growth rate indices (absolute (AGR) and relative growth rates (RGR)) were estimated and associated with IGF-2 gene polymorphism.  The results show that IGF-2 allelic variants had no effect on the body weight (BW), AGR and RGR while chicken’s genotype effect was significant (p<0.01) on BW and AGR. Two crossbred genotypes (NxM,1524.23±137.20 and 1894.92±122.81), (FxM, 1445.19±177.24 and 1840.88±177.86) had better performance for AGR and BW, respectively, compared to the purebred of Nigerian indigenous chickens. The heritability values ranged from low (.06±.021) to high (.77±.24).