An investigation was carried out on Deoni animals of western India to study the allelic and genotypic frequencies in coding region of TYR gene as well as gene expression profile. The animals were grouped according to age, gender, strain and intensity of partial albinism (low, medium and high). The present study revealed that the genotypic frequency of TYR gene across different strains, gender, age group and level of partial albinism was found to be non-significant for both exon-I and exon-II. The AB genotype in Balankya (0.70) was observed highest genotypic frequency followed by Wanera (0.55) and Shewara (0.55) strains. The genotypic frequency of AB and BB genotypes were observed highest in male and female, respectively. In exon-I, genotype frequency of AA genotype was found highest (0.55) in low level of partial albinism. The allelic frequencies in Shewara strain, male and low level of partial albinism were 0.75, 0.63 and 0.73, respectively. However, in exon-II genotype frequency of AB and BB was observed highest (0.70) in Wanera and Balankya strains followed by AA genotype in Shewara (0.50). The highest genotypic frequency of AA (0.87) and BB (0.50) were in male and female, respectively. The genotype frequency of AB genotype was found highest in all level of partial albinism. The allelic frequency was highest (0.85 for B allele) in Wanera strain, male (0.80 for A allele) and high level (0.60 for A allele) of particle albinism. The highly significant (p = 0.002) expression of tyrosinase gene was observed in young animals as compared to adult animals. The TYR gene expression was significantly (p = 0.047) higher in animals with low intensity of partial albinism followed by in the animals with medium and high intensity. Therefore, it is inferred that the TYR gene expression in young animals were high and as compared to the old animals of Deoni cattle breed.
Keywords: Deonil cattle; Marathwada; PCR-RFLP; real time PCR; tyrosinase gene.