Research On Animal Production

     Prolactin, an important polypeptide hormone, is secreted by specialized cells in the anterior pituitary gland and is predominantly under inhibitory influence of the hypothalamus. This hormone plays a crucial role in incubation signaling and egg production in avian. The aim of this study was to determine the polymorphisms at situation +2402 bp (PRL5) and a 24-bp nucleotide in/del at nucleotide position -358 in promoter region of Prolactin gene in some Iranian native fowls. Blood samples were collected randomly from 251 hens of four strains involving Fars, Yazd, West Azerbaijan and Mazandaran native fowls. Specific PCR primers were employed for amplification of a 439 bp (PRL5) and 154/130 bp (PRL24) fragments of Prolactin promoter region. For genotyping of PRL24 and PRL5 amplified fragments; direct observation and AluΙ restriction enzyme were used, respectively. For PRL24 locus two alleles of I and D were detected in all of strains. The frequency of I allele was predominant in Fars (0.64), Yazd (0.68) and Mazandaran (0.52) strains than West Azerbaijan (0.3) strain. For PRL5 locus two alleles of C and T were detected and C allele possess a large amount of frequency with 0.76, 0.66 and 0.63 in Fars, Yazd and Mazandaran strains, respectively than West Azerbaijan (0.31) strain. Results of the present study and other research suggested, these loci can be informative marker in marker assisted selection programs with aim of increase of egg production by decreasing the broodiness.