posted on 2023-05-03, 10:00authored byHua Gong, Huitong Zhou, Rachel Forrest, Shaobin Li, Jiqing Wang, Jolon Dyer, Yuzhu Luo, Jon Hickford
The importance of sheep’s wool in making textiles has inspired extensive research into its structure and the underlying genetics since the 1960s. Wool keratin-associated proteins (KAPs) are a key structural component of the wool fibre. The characterisation of the genes encoding these proteins has progressed rapidly with advances in the nucleotide and protein sequencing. This review describes our knowledge of ovine KAPs, their categorisation into families, polymorphism in the proteins and genes, the clustering and chromosomal location of the genes, some characteristics of gene expression and some potential effects of the KAPs on wool traits. The extent and nature of genetic variation in wool KAP genes and its association with fibre characteristics, provides an opportunity for the development of gene-markers for selective breeding of sheep to produce better wool with properties highly matched to specific end-uses.
History
Rights statement
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Language
English
Does this contain Māori information or data?
No
Publisher
MDPI AG
Journal title
Genes
ISSN
2073-4425
Citation
Gong, H., Zhou, H., Forrest, R. H. J., Li, S., Wang, J., Dyer, J. M., Luo, Y., & Hickford, J. G. H. (2016). Wool keratin-associated protein genes in sheep: a review. Genes 2016, 7(6), 24. doi:10.3390/genes7060024