Pituitary Specific transcription factor 1 (PIT-1) gene is one of the POU gene family and play key roles in the regulation of muscle development which is important for body weight in chickens. This study was carried out to detect the polymorphism of PIT-1 gene and study its association with body weight in Fulani and Yoruba ecotype of Nigerian indigenous chickens. A total of 100 day-old chicks comprising of fifty chicks of Fulani and Yoruba ecotypes were used for this study. These chicks were genotyped using PCR-RFLP technique and their growth rate was also measured throughout the study. Our results showed two alleles A and B controlling genotypes AA and AB which were significantly associated with bodyweight of the chickens. Interestingly, we found out that AA genotype had the highest frequency of 0.64 and 0.76 compared with AB genotype which had a frequency of 0.36 and 0.24 in the Fulani and Yoruba ecotype respectively. Furthermore, the PIT-1 genotypes (AA and AB) were significantly associated (p < 0.05) with body weight at week 4 and week 12 in Fulani and Yoruba ecotype chicken respectively. PIT-1 gene was polymorphic in Fulani and Yoruba ecotypes of Nigeria Indigenous Chickens.

Tropically adapted farm animals are characterized by low meat and milk productivity. Traditionally, mass selection has been widely employed in breeding for improved animal performance. However, improving animal productivity using mass selection is laborious and usually less effective. Advances in molecular techniques such as DNA sequencing analysis provide the opportunity to characterize meat and milk influencing genes, which can lead to faster genetic improvement but often unaffordable and expensive particularly in developing countries. Unlike the wet laboratory analysis, computational molecular analyses is comparatively cheaper in pre-screening of the functional impacts of nonsynonymous single-nucleotide variants of some performance traits-related genes such as hormone-sensitive lipase (LIPE). A total of fifteen (15) LIPE nucleotide sequences comprising pig (3), cattle (3), water buffalo (2), camel (2), goat (2) and sheep (3) were retrieved from the Genbank. Also, twenty (20) functionally associated genes with the LIPE gene including perilipin 1, 2 & 5 protein kinase cAMP-activated catalytic subunit alpha, protein kinase X-linked were determined using the GeneMANIA. Functional analysis of non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism using PROVEAN showed that ten amino acid substitutions (S216C, P107del, Q28_P29insRATHVA, S41_S44dup, A640M, S940A, L660I,  D86delinsWA, S1000F) in water buffalo and pig (X678E, V789K, G987del, T218K, Q2234del, L278H, Q321del, L1023delinsPKL, P1452V, H1267delinsRFT), nine in sheep (F67_P68delinsVQ, R24G, A247_R248dup, L122L, L144P, S149K, S125S,  S224H, G148M) and goats (A450Y, P480H, G490delinsPHQ, L500R, R550del, S100_S101dup, E600S, A700Q, P754delinsQAW) and five in camel (A320A, S210S, L130L, T400T, L440I) were found neutral indicating their beneficial effect while only T110A out of the fifteen amino acid substitutions was found deleterious in cattle. The obtained phylogenetic trees from the nucleotide sequences showed a closer relationship among the members of the Bovidae family particularly the sheep and cattle. This information may aid future research that aims at the selection of the studied animals for improved meat and milk quality traits.

Inhibin A (INHA) a member of the transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) family has been implicated in the negative feedback control mechanism of the pituitary follicle stimulating hormone (FSH). Inhibin has been reported to be associated with litter size, milk yield, fertility and reproductive traits in ruminants. A total of ten amino acid sequences (four sheep and six goats) were downloaded from the National Centre for Biotechnology Information database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp). The amino acid sequence alignment was carried out using ClustalW algorithm of Molecular Evolutionary Genetic Analysis software version 6.0. The functional effects of eighteen (18) amino acid substitutions of INHA gene in each of sheep and goats were predicted computationally using Polyphen-2, PROVEAN and SIFT algorithms while INHA gene functions and interactions with associated genes were investigated using GeneMANIA. Variants that were consensually predicted to be deleterious by the three algorithms utilised were referred to as ‘Cmutant’ and ‘Dmutant’ in sheep and goats, respectively. The MutPred was further used to determine the tolerance degree for each amino acid substitution of both the ‘Cmutant’ and ‘Dmutant’. GeneMANIA revealed 20 genes that co-localised, co-expressed with, play functionally similar role or has physical or genetic interaction with INHA gene. Out of the studied eighteen (18) amino acid substitutions; there was a consensus by SIFT, PROVEAN and PolyPhen-2 algorithms in the prediction of variants C99R, C264D, L237T and F14C as being deleterious in sheep and variants D77F, L190K, R223D, L240N, C322T and P326C in goats. In goats, MutPred revealed that variants R223D and D77F were not harmful while, L190K, R223D, L240N and P326C mutations were observed to be highly harmful. In sheep, the ‘Dmutants’ (C99R, C264D, F14C and L237T) were predicted to be highly harmful. The obtained findings would be useful in planning research aiming at exploring the association between INHA gene variants and economically important traits of small ruminants.

The study was carried out to assess the genetic variation in indigenous turkey populations in South West Nigeria using seven protein markers: Hemoglobin (Hb), Albumin (Alb), Transferin (Tf), Esterase-1 (Es-1), Alkaline phosphatase (ALP), Carbonic anhydrase (CA), and Esterase-3 (Es-3).. A total of 97 turkey birds from Ibadan, Ijebu Ode and Akure were purposively sampled. Separation of plasma and red cell proteins were determined on cellulose acetate electrophoresis to estimate the genetic variability within and among the populations. The degree of heterozygosity, deviation from Hardy-Weinbergs Equilibrum (HWE), FIS, and FST values were estimated. From a total of 7 loci analyzed, six were found to be polymorphic in all the populations sampled while Es-1 was monomorphic. Two codominant alleles which controlled three different genotypes were observed at each polymorphic loci. Deviations from Hardy Weinberg equilibrium and a deficiency of heterozygotes were observed in all the populations. Average heterozygosities ranged between 0.13 and 0.20, heterozygote deficit FIT was estimated at 0.5784 while within breed deficit as evaluated by FIS ranged from 0.38 to 0.56. The fixation index FST revealed that genetic diversity within the studied population was moderately differentiated. Genetic distance among the populations quantified through calculation of Nei genetic distance ranged from 0.037 - 0.109. The result obtained may be used as an initial guide in defining objectives for future investigations of genetic integrity and developing conservation strategies for Nigeria indigenous turkeys.