Detection of small sequence variations within the goat GHR gene and its effects on growth traits

Growth hormone receptor (GHR) gene is considered to be an important candidate gene in growth traits. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to detect whether there were potential indel variations in the GHR gene that were related to the growth traits of the Shaanbei white cashmere goats (SBWC). In this study, genomic DNA from 931 healthy SBWC individuals were used to verify the relationship between the indel of the GHR gene and growth traits. Two indel variants, P4_9-bp indel in intron 1 and P14_10-bp indel in 3'-UTR, were confirmed. Association analyses demonstrated that these two indel polymorphism loci were associated with the chest circumference and chest width of SBWC. Additionally, for the P4_9-bp and P14_10-bp indel loci, the ID and II genotypes were dominant genotypes, respectively. Moreover, the genotypic distributions of these two indel loci in SBWC were significantly different from those in three other Chinese indigenous goat breeds (HNBG, GZDG and IMWC) (p < 0.05). Taken together, two indel loci (P4_9-bp indel and P14_10-bp indel) both significantly affected the growth traits of goats. This illustrated that these two indel loci might be the potential DNA marker for use in improving the selection and breeding of goats.