Hemoglobin polymorphism and its association with some morphometric traits of Sheko cattle in south-western Ethiopia

The present study investigated the biochemical polymorphism of hemoglobin and its association with some morphometric traits in Sheko cattle. For this, a total of 155 Sheko cattle of both sexes were evaluated, and distinguishing phenotypic characteristics of the breed, horn length, and hump size measurements were taken. To study the polymorphic activities of hemoglobin, blood samples from the same animals were collected by jugular vein puncture, and the samples were subjected to agarose gel electrophoresis (pH range 8.4-8.5). Three Hb genotypes, HbAA, HbAB, and HbBB were observed. The most frequent genotype was HbAB (0.62). The frequency of HbA and HbB alleles were 0.66 and 0.34, respectively. The chi-square (χ2) test revealed that the observed genotype frequency of the population is not under Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. In addition, the typical phenotypic features of Sheko cattle, polled and no or a small hump size, correspond to the HbAB genotype. The present study identified possible associations between hemoglobin variants and some visible traits, suggesting its potential significance as a marker for selecting Sheko cattle.