detection of polymorphism in the exon 4 and 3ʹ utr of tnfα gene in makoei sheep, using pcr-sscp

tumor necrosis factor -alpha (tnfα) is a proinflammatory cytokine that plays critical roles in the regulation of immune responses including macrophages activity and apoptosis. tnfα gene is polymorphic and its haplotypes have been associated with resistance or susceptibility to disease. this study was undertaken to identify the polymorphism of tnfα gene in makoei sheep, using polymerase chain reaction (pcr) and single strand conformation polymorphism (sscp) technique. a total number of 90 makoei sheep were randomly selected from makoei sheep breeding station where located in mako and blood samples were collected. genomic dna was extracted from blood samples in order to amplify 273 bp fragment comprising part of the fourth exon and the 3ʹ untranslated region (3ʹ utr) of the ovine tnfα gene. pcr products were subjected to sscp analysis. based on the obtained sscp patterns three alleles e, o and r with frequencies of 73.33, 17.78 and 8.89 % and three genotypes ee, oe and re with frequencies of 46.67, 35.56 and 17.77 % were identified, respectively.