Associations between prolactin gene polymorphism and milk production in montebeliard cows

Nasrin Ghasemi^1*, Mohammad Zadehrahmani², Ghodratollah Rahimi³, Seyed Hassan Hafezian³

¹Genetic Department, Safayeh, Bouali Street, Research and Clinical Centre for Infertility, Yazd Shahid Sadoughi Medical Sciences University, Yazd, Iran.

²Genetic Department, University of Mazandaran

³Animal Improvement and Genetics Department, Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Sources University,

Accepted 8 June, 2009

   Abstract

Prolactin (PRL) is one of the multi-purpose hormones of the pituitary gland in terms of biological actions especially milk production.  In this study associations were analyzed between polymorphisms of the prolactin gene (PRL-RsaI) and milk production traits of Montebeliard cows. PCR-RFLP method was used for identification of genotypes. Frequencies of genotypes were 0.81, 0.15 and 0.04 for A/A, A/B and B/B, respectively. The frequency of PRL A allele is 0.89. The results show AA cows yielded most milk in compared of other groups.