Wool is produced via synthetic processes of wool follicles, which are embedded in the skin of sheep. The development of new-generation sequencing and RNA sequencing provides new approaches that may elucidate the molecular regulation mechanism of wool follicle development and facilitate enhanced selection for wool traits through gene-assisted selection or targeted gene manipulation. We performed...

Sheep were one of the first livestock species domesticated by humans. After initial domestication in the Middle East they were spread across Eurasia. The modern distribution of endogenous Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus insertions in domestic sheep breeds suggests that over the course of millennia, successive introductions of improved lineages and selection for wool quality occurred in the Mediterr...

Keratin-associated proteins (KAPs) are structural components of wool and hair fibres, and are believed to play a role in defining the physico-mechanical properties of the wool fibre. In this study, the putative ovine homologue of the human KAP26-1 gene (KRTAP26-1) was sequenced and four variants (named A-D) were identified. The sequences shared some identity with each other and with other KRTAP...

The primary selection objective in the South African Mutton Merino is meat production, while wool plays a secondary role. The Merino, on the other hand is selected for wool production. Respectively 20 and 23 of each genetic different type of ewes were used in a 15-week indoor study to quantify the influence of nutrient intake on certain production traits when fed at different levels of their re...

Guizhou semi-fine wool sheep are affected by a disease, characterized by emaciation, lameness, stiffness in the gait, enlargement of the costochondral junctions, and abnormal curvature in the long bones. The objective of this study was to determine possible relationships between the disease and mineral deficiencies. Samples of tissue and blood were collected from affected and unaffected sheep. ...

Purpose Australia is the largest supplier of high quality wool in the world. The environmental burden of sheep production must be shared between wool and meat. We examine different methods to handle these co-products and focus on proportional protein content as a basis for allocation, that is, protein mass allocation (PMA). This is the first comprehensive investigation applying PMA for calculat...

in order to estimate economic values of productive traits (meat, milk and wool) in taleshi native sheep breed of iran, records from economic parameters and performance of local taleshi flocks were used. the economic values of traits were used to select the maximum profit estimation also to study the sensitivity rate of the model the effects of 20 percent increase / decrease in the price of milk...

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) provide a powerful approach for identifying quantitative trait loci without prior knowledge of location or function. To identify loci associated with wool production traits, we performed a genome-wide association study on a total of 765 Chinese Merino sheep (JunKen type) genotyped with 50 K single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). In the present study, five...

Wool fiber diameter (WFD) is the most important economic trait of wool. However, the genes specifically controlling WFD remain elusive. In this study, the expression profiles of skin from two groups of Gansu Alpine merino sheep with different WFD (a super-fine wool group [FD = 18.0 ± 0.5 μm, n=3] and a fine wool group [FD=23.0 ± 0.5 μm, n=3]) were analyzed using next-generation sequencing-based...