Polymorphisms of the calpain and calpastatin genes in two populations of colombian creole sheep

Objetive. Characterize the genetic polymorphism type SNPs in the calpain (CAPN) and calpastatin (CAST) genes of Colombian creole hair sheep (OPC). Materials and methods. In 300 individuals belonging to two OPC subpopulations from the departments of Sucre (SC) and Valle del Cauca (VC) were genotyped by PCR-RFLP (MspI) for the CAST locus and by PCR-SSCP for the CAPN locus. The allelic and genotypic frequencies, the observed (Ho) and expected heterozygosity (He), the fixation index (F) and the deviations from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) were calculated and a molecular analysis of variance to estimate the values of FST, FIS and FIT. Results. In the CAST locus, the MM genotype was the most frequent (83.9±1.1%), followed by the other genotypes (MN: 15.5±1.1, NN: 6.0±0.0%) and the allelic frequency of M (91.7±0.4%) exceeded that of N (8.3±0.4%). For the CAPN locus the heterozygous genotype (48.2±0.7%) was the most frequent, the other genotypes presented frequencies TT:44.7 ± 1.9 and CC:7.0 ± 1.4%. The T allele reached a frequency of 68.8±1.5% (C: 31.3±1.5%). Similar percentages of allelic and genotypic frequencies were found in the subpopulations. The He was less than the Ho in both loci, with negative values of F and deviations of EHW only in CAPN. All the variation found was due to differences within the individuals, with nonsignificant values (p>0.05) of FST, FIS, and FIT (0.002, -0.093 and -0.095, respectively). Conclusions. The loci studied has high variability, these results can be used for future gene-assisted selection plans to increase OPC productivity.