Publikationsdatenbank

Allelic variations in coding regions of the vitamin D receptor gene in dairy cows and potential susceptibility to periparturient hypocalcaemia (2012)

Art

Zeitschriftenartikel / wissenschaftlicher Beitrag

Autoren

Deiner, Carolin

Reiche, Maria

Lassner, Dirk

Grienitz, Desirée

Twardziok, Sven

Moesch, Anne

Wenning, Peter

Martens, Holger

Quelle

The journal of dairy research; 79(4) — S. 423–428

ISSN: 0022-0299

Sprache

Englisch

Verweise

URL (Volltext): http://edocs.fu-berlin.de/docs/receive/FUDOCS_document_000000020297

DOI: 10.1017/S0022029912000465

Pubmed: 22963675

Kontakt

Institut für Veterinär-Physiologie

Oertzenweg 19 b
14163 Berlin
+49 30 838 62600
physiologie@vetmed.fu-berlin.de

Abstract / Zusammenfassung

Periparturient hypocalcaemia (milk fever) is a disorder of Ca metabolism in dairy cattle primarily affecting multiparous cows. The major reasons for the rapid decrease of blood Ca concentration after calving are the prompt increase of Ca secretion into the colostrum and the delayed activation of Ca regulation mechanisms including calcitriol, a metabolite of vitamin D. In man, vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene polymorphisms are reported to be associated with disturbances of Ca metabolism, whereas data confirming the same in dairy cows are still missing. Moreover, polymorphisms that only affect non-coding regions are sometimes difficult to ascribe to a specific disorder as pathways and unequivocal links remain elusive. Therefore, the idea of the present study was to investigate in a small group of dairy cows with documented clinical records whether polymorphisms in the coding regions of the VDR gene existed and whether these potentially found variations were correlated with the incidence of periparturient hypocalcaemia. For this purpose, blood DNA was isolated from 26 dairy cows in their 4th to 6th lactation, out of which 17 had experienced hypocalcaemia at least once, whereas 9 cows had never undergone periparturient hypocalcaemia in their lifetime. The 10 VDR exons and small parts of adjacent introns were sequenced and compared with the Bos taurus VDR sequence published on NCBI based on the DNA of one Hereford cow. In total, 8 sequence alterations were detected in the fragments, which were primarily heterozygous. However, only 4 of them were really located on exons thereby potentially causing changes of the encoded amino acid of the VDR protein, but were not correlated with the incidence of periparturient hypocalcaemia. Certainly, this lack of statistical correlation could be due to the small number of animals included; anyhow, it was not encouraging enough to initiate a larger study with hundreds of cows and document blood Ca levels post partum for at least four lactations.