Abstract

The Carwell phenotype is a desirable inherited muscular hypertrophy of the Longissimus dorsimuscle in Poll Dorset sheep that does not have any detrimental effect on eating quality, fat deposition or detectable meat tenderness. The Carwell haplotype has been localized to a 350kb region on the distal end of OAR18 near the Callipyge locus (Nicoll et al. 1998) containing three known genes. However, in spite of considerable effort in sequencing and resequencing, the causative mutation has not been identified. Although unsuccessful in identifying the causative mutation, these studies have revealed that the Carwell phenotype displays an imprinted inheritance pattern, with increased muscling associated with inheritance from the sire but not the dam.

C, Couldrey, R Brauning, PH MacLean, HV Henderson, and JC McEwan

Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 73, Hamilton, 37-40, 2013