Identification of complex vertebral malformation in karan fries animals

CVM is a hereditary lethal disease in Holstein calves, characterized by complex anomalies of the vertebreal column and limbs. Clinical features of CVM are abortion any time during gestation, premature birth, low birth weight, stillbirth or in rare cases born alive. The defect is characterized by shortening of the cervical and thoracic parts of the vertebral column, protrusion of the tongue, caudoventrally displaced ears, protruding abdomen, umbilical hernia etc. The mode of inheritance of CVM is autosomal recessive and it is cause by a point mutation from G to T at nucleotide position 559 of the boyine solute carrier family 35 member 3 (SLC35A3) gene. Keeping this in view the present study was conducted to screen KF animals for single point mutation in SLC35A3 gene. Keeping this is view the present study was conducted to screen KF animals for single point mutation in SLC35A3 gene. In this study 10 mn blood was collected from 100 Karan Fries animals from Cattle Yard and Artificial Breeding Complex. National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, India. Genomic DNA was isolated by phenol chloroform extraction method. The PCR was performed using primers already reported im previous studies. The PCR products obtained were subjected to RELP analysis using Pst 1 restriction enzymes. The results of RFLP showed that 84 animals out of 110 were heterozygous for CVM. No homozygous recessive animal was found for CVM. The estimated frequencies of dominant and recessive alleles in the KF population screened 0.618 and 0.382 respectively. The frequencies of carrier animals (genotype) were 76.36 percent respectively. Based on this study it is recommended that all the KF cattle at NDRI should be screened for CVM. This also calls for screening of other population of HF and its crosses in the country.