Molecular Characterization of Ghrelin gene in sheep of Saudi Arabia. Research Journal of Biotechnology, 11: 39-44.
Abstract
The main role of Ghrelin hormone is the regulation of
feed intake, body weight and gastrointestinal motility.
It stimulates appetite by acting on the hypothalamic
arcuate nucleus. Ghrelin is orexigenic that transmits a
hunger signal from the periphery to the central
nervous system and is involved in mealtime hunger
and meal initiation. The aim of the present study was
to characterize the GHRL gene in two Saudi sheep
breeds locally named as Najdi and Naeimi. A
fragment of 112 bpcomprisingparts of exon 1 and
intron 1 of the Ghrelin gene was amplified and
sequenced. Our mutations were detected at positions
(74,92, 99 and 108) of the intron1. In addition, the
four mutations were used to construct different
haplotypes, three haplotypes were recovered: H1
(TAAA), H2 (CGGG), and H3 (TGAA).
