Genetic Variability and Significance of STAT Gene in Dairy Animals

Importance in the bovine signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) gene has increased due to involvement of STAT1 in the development of the mammary gland and regulating the transcription of genes involved in milk protein synthesis and fat metabolism. Signal transducer and activator of transcription gene are a family of cytoplasmic proteins that are activated in response to a large number of growth factors, hormones and cytokines. STAT5 is associated to milk composition, survival of embryo, conception rate, fertilization rate and calving interval of dairy animals. Presently, seven bovine STAT genes have been identified and it has been found that STAT1, STAT5A, and STAT5B were not completely regulated by individual effectors of differentiation but their expression was tightly interrelated with lipid accumulation. Studies on the expression of STAT in different tissues and at different developmental stages have shown that STAT1 and STAT3 are constitutively expressed at constant levels during pregnancy, involution, lactation but STAT4 and STAT5 are  developmentally regulated. STAT5A is a candidate or main gene because it is a member of interferon and placental lactogen (PL) signal transduction pathways and plays important role in reproduction and milk production traits. In dairy animals, a number of association studies with milk yield, fat yield, protein yield, embryonic survival, conception rate and calving interval have been carried out. These associations will be helpful to understand the underlying mechanism of STAT gene and polymorphisms that can be used for selection purposes in dairy animals. Keywords: Candidate gene, fertility, milk content, polymorphism Cite this Article Manoj Kumar, Poonam Ratwan, Vikas Vohra. Genetic Variability and Significance of STAT Gene in Dairy Animals. Research & Reviews: Journal of Dairy Science and Technology . 2016; 5(3): 1–6p.