Indian Journal of Animal Research

Mx1 is an interferon induced gene which inhibits the proliferation of single stranded RNA viruses. The size of Mx1 gene of chicken (Gallus gallus) is 21289 bp, having 14 exons and the coding sequence is 2118 bp long. Differential antiviral activity of Mx protein has been proved in various species including chicken. Polymerase Chain Reaction and subsequent Single Stranded Conformation Polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) analysis of 284 bp fragment of this gene was conducted to screen 153 birds of Aseel breed of chicken. Three genotypes viz. AB (0.74), BC (0.12) and AC (0.14) with three different alleles viz. A (0.44), B (0.43) and C (0.13) were identified. The homozygous genotypes i.e. AA, BB and CC could not be found in this population. Nucleotide sequencing of different alleles was done and submitted to the NCBI GenBank data (Acc. No.-GQ912704, GQ912705 and GQ912706). Nucleotide sequences were aligned with that of the corresponding Mx1 gene sequences of different breeds of chicken using DNASTAR Lasergene Software which revealed variations at five positions (91^st, 107^th, 113^th, 194^th and 231^st). There is an urgent need of wide search for detection of polymorphism in Mx1 gene of different breeds of chicken and its possible association with the traits of economic importance.