Expression of Coat Colour Gene, MC1R in Cattle

Abstract

Background: Scanty reports are available in the literature about the coat colour inheritance and its related genes in cattle. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to know the expression of coat colour gene, MC1R in cattle. Methods: DNA was extracted from 85 whole blood samples of Red Chittagong cattle (RCC), Non-descriptive deshi and their crossbred of which 75 positive samples were sequenced by Sanger sequencer. Sequence alignment, pair and multi-alignment comparison of the MC1R gene of different genotype and a phylogenic tree constructed by MEGA6 software. Result: RCC has a dominant R gene for red colour. Point mutation was observed at 954 bp and substitution (395G→A) was found in the MC1R gene of RCC genotype. The evolutionary history of branching pattern showed the relatedness of MC1R nucleotide sequences of cattle and this gene have been regulating coat colour inheritance of cattle.