Article

The first animal with black traits to be studied was the Black-boned chicken. In China, we identified a flock of sheep with black traits. In the present study, the complete coding sequences of three genes, PSPH, SNRPA1 and TPM1, of Black-boned sheep (Ovis aries) were amplified using the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, according to the conserved sequence information for cattle and other mammals and known highly homologous sheep ESTs. The results showed that the Black-boned sheep PSPH gene encodes a protein of 225 amino acids, which has high homology with the PSPH proteins of seven species: cattle (99 %), humans (94 %), rat (93 %), mouse (93 %), African clawed frog (77 %), Atlantic salmon (70 %) and zebrafish (68 %). The Black-boned sheep SNRPA1 gene encodes a protein of 255 amino acids, which has high identity with the SNRPA1 proteins of four species: cattle (99 %), humans (99 %), mouse (97 %) and chicken (91 %). The Black-boned sheep TPM1 gene encodes a protein of 284 amino acids, which has high homology with the TPM1 proteins of four species: cattle (82 %), rabbit (82 %), mouse (82 %) and humans (81 %). Using phylogenetic analysis, it was shown that the Black-boned sheep PSPH, SNRPA1 and TPM1 proteins are closely related to their cattle counterparts. The tissue expression analyses revealed that the Black-boned sheep PSPH, SNRPA1 and TPM1 genes were expressed in a range of tissues, including leg muscles, the kidneys, the skin, the longissimus dorsi muscle, the spleen, the heart and the liver. These data serve as a foundation for further insight into these three genes in this rare sheep breed.