Abstract
In a worldwide majority of sheep breeds an excessive susceptibility to scrapie associated with thePrP gene alleles coding for valine (V; at the 136 codon) and glutamine (Q; at the 171 codon) (e.g., VRQ/VRQ, VRQ/ARQ, or ARQ/ARQ) was demonstrated. Particularly thePrP VRQ allele is closely associated with the high-risk development of the disease; thePrP ARQ allele can also fulfil this function but under certain limited conditions. Polymorphism in thePrP gene sequences (conclusively related to the increased susceptibility of sheep to scrapie) of improved Valachian sheep from two Slovak regions, Orava and Spiš, was determined. Examination of 735 sheep showed that ARR/ARQ was the most frequent genotype (45.2 %). High-risk genotypes were determined in 32.4 % of sheep (ARQ/ARQ 19.3, ARR/VRQ 9.0, ARR/VRQ 3.5, VRQ/VRQ 0.3, ARR/VRR 0.3). Low-risk genotypes were found in 67.7 % of sheep (ARR/ARQ 45.2, ARR/ARR 10.9, ARR/AHQ 5.7, ARQ/ARQ 4.9, AHQ/AHQ 0.7, ARR/AHR 0.3). Despite the geographically distant flocks of improved Valachian sheep investigated no difference in the occurrence of individual PrP genotypes was observed.
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Tkáčiková, L., Hanušovská, E., Novák, M. et al. The PrP genotype of sheep of the improved Valachian breed. Folia Microbiol 48, 269–276 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02930968
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02930968