Relative abundance of tissue mRNA and association of the single nucleotide polymorphism of the goat NGF gene with prolificacy

Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) promotes the development of pre-antral ovarian follicles through ovarian innervations and regulation of ovarian response to gonadotropins. The present study was conducted to study the tissue gene expression profile, to characterize the genetic variants, find associations of the NGF gene with prolificacy in the prolific Malabari and less prolific Attappady Black goats because NGF has an important role in reproduction by augmenting ovarian folliculogenesis. Relative abundance of NGF mRNA was greatest in reproductive tissues signifying its role in reproduction. The PCR-SSCP analysis of a 251bp fragment of Exon 3 of the NGF gene from the 277 goats revealed four diplotypes (EE, EF, FF and EG) with respective frequencies of 0.76, 0.22, 0.01 and 0.01. Sequencing of the representative samples revealed one synonymous and one novel non synonymous mutations (g.705G>A and g.715C>T). Statistical analysis indicated that the SNP g.705G>A was associated with litter size in Attappady Black goats (P