The Effect of Uncoupling Protein Polymorphisms on Growth, Breeding Value of Growth and Reproductive Traits in the Fars Indigenous Chicken

The avian uncoupling protein (avUCP) is a member of the mitochondrial transporter superfamily that un-couples proton entry in the mitochondrial matrix from ATP synthesis. The polymerase chain reaction re-striction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method was used to estimate the allele and genotype frequencies of the UCP/HhaI polymorphisms and to determine associations between these polymorphisms and the growth traits, breeding value of growth and reproductive traits in the Fars indigenous chicken. For this purpose phenotype information of 18 successive generations from 200 birds were analyzed using a univariate animal model in ASREML procedure. The evaluation of the association between this single nu-cleotide polymorphisms (SNP) with reproductive traits suggests a positive effect of TC genotype with age at first egg (ASM) compared with CC genotype. In addition, TC genotype was significantly associated with the breeding value of age at first egg compared with the CC genotype (P<0.05). In conclusion, our results suggest that the TC genotype of the UCP gene is associated with age at sexual maturity (ASM) and breed-ing value of age at sexual maturity and UCP polymorphisms may be used as DNA markers for selection in the breeding process of the Fars indigenous chicken.