Genetic Screening of COMT Gene for Aggression in Domestic Bovines of Pakistan
Genetic Screening of COMT Gene for Aggression in Domestic Bovines of Pakistan
Maryam Javed*, Farwa Saghir, Naveera Aziz, Maham Saeed, Asif Nadeem and Wasim Shehzad
ABSTRACT
Aggression in animals is mostly related to the territory protection, competition for resources like water, food, offspring and mating probabilities. It is an antisocial behavior having strong genetic relation. Current study focused mainly on the screening of genetic marker V158M located in COMT gene for its relation to physical aggression in the four domestic bovine species of Pakistan, which are normally less aggressive. Selected animal species were cattle (Bos indicus), buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), sheep (Ovis aries) and goat (Capra hircus). Selected marker V158M is present in exon-8 of COMT gene. Each specie was subjected to blood sampling (n=20 each). DNA was extracted, purified, quantified and amplified through PCR by using specific primer set. Then Sanger’s method of DNA sequencing was used. Multiple sequence alignment demonstrated that sheep and goat were having the wild base Guanine against which the cattle and buffalo depicted the mutant form Adenine. Results of this study illustrated the genetic tendency of large domestic bovines towards aggression and attack, so they should be handled with great caution.
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