Use of two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis to detect plasma protein variation between Romney sheep selected for facial eczema resistance or susceptibility

Abstract

Two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis was used to search for plasma protein variation between Romney sheep selected for facial eczema resistance or susceptibility. Among the ≅ 20 major plasma protein families, visualised on developed gels by Coomassie blue staining, significant variation between sheep from these 2 groups only occurred at the transferrin locus. Romneys selected for resistance showed a predominance of acidic transferrins, whereas Romneys selected for susceptibility contained a basic transferrin in greater abundance than the resistant sheep. The results were confirmed and their significance was assessed by using onedimensional polyacrylamide gels for rapid transferrin phenotyping. The data suggest that there is some separation of transferrin A and D alleles between the animals selected for resistance or susceptibility.

Keywords:

• Romney
• sheep selection
• facial eczema
• resistance
• polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis
• transferrins