The correlations between polymorphism of growth hormone receptor gene and butcher traits in rabbit

Abstract

Five rabbit populations (Belgian hare, Tianfu black rabbit, Great line of Zika rabbit, Harbin white rabbit, and California rabbit) were used to analyze the polymorphism of growth hormone receptor (GHR) gene by PCR-SSCP. Results indicated that there were two mutation sites (C705T and C810T) in the 5 populations. The least square analyses showed that the live weight, visceraste weight, and slaughter percentage of AA and MM genotypes were significantly lower than BB and NN genotypes (P<0.05). In contrast, the GHR polymorphism had no significant difference for least squares means of feed transformation efficiency (P>0.05). It suggested that GHR gene may be a candidate gene responsible for butcher trait in rabbit.