The adiponectin gene (ADIPOQ) plays an important role in energy homeostasis. In this study five separate regions (regions 1 to 5) of ovine ADIPOQ were analysed using PCR-SSCP. Four different PCR-SSCP patterns (A₁-D₁, A₂-D₂) were detected in region-1 and region-2, respectively, with seven and six SNPs being revealed. In region-3, three different patterns (A₃-C₃) and three SNPs were observed. Two patterns (A₄-B₄, A₅-B₅) and two and one SNPs were observed in region-4 and region-5, respectively. In total, nineteen SNPs were detected, with five of them in the coding region and two (c.46T/C and c.515G/A) putatively resulting in amino acid changes (p.Tyr16His and p.Lys172Arg). In region-1, -2 and -3 of 316 sheep from eight New Zealand breeds, variants A₁, A₂ and A₃ were the most common, although variant frequencies differed in the eight breeds. Across region-1 and region-3, nine haplotypes were identified and haplotypes A₁-A₃, A₁-C₃, B₁-A₃ and B₁-C₃ were most common. These results indicate that the ADIPOQ gene is polymorphic and suggest that further analysis is required to see if the variation in the gene is associated with animal production traits.
Keywords: ADIPOQ; PCR-SSCP; adiponectin; haplotype; sheep; variation.