Molecular Genetics and its Relation With Inheritance of Some Productive and reproductive traits in Rabbits

The aims of this investigation were: 1) to evaluate and quantify the genetic and non-genetic aspects of Gabali (Gab), Californian (Cal) and Bauscat (B) rabbit breeds for doe productive and reproductive traits and progeny growth traits. 2) To develop biochemical genetic markers associated with productive and reproductive traits as detected by the electrophoretic pattern of proteins and esterase isozyme in blood serum. 3) To elucidate molecular markers by SSR-PCR technique related to study the growth performance in Growth Hormone Receptors (GHR) gene. All these measurements will be done for the three rabbit breeds.The obtained results could be summarized as follows:1) Years of kindling significantly (P ≤ 0.05, 0.01 or 0.001) affected litter weight at birth and litter size at 21 days in B rabbits; all litter size traits in Cal and all litter traits in Gab rabbits.2) Season of kindling showed significant (P ≤ 0.05, 0.01 or 0.001) effects on most litter traits in all breeds studied.3) Most of litter traits increased as parity advanced till the 4th parity for B and in the 5th parity for both Cal and Gab rabbits and decreased after that.4) The increase of litter size at birth was accompanied with significantly (P ≤ 0.001) increasing of pre-weaning litter weight at different ages studied.5)Litter weight gain had affected significantly (P ≤ 0.01 or 0.001) by year of kindling, season, parity order and litter size at birth in the three rabbit breeds studied.6)Pre-weaning mortality significantly (P ≤ 0.05) differed by year of kindling and litter size at birth in Cal; parity and litter size at birth in Gab rabbits.7)Most doe reproductive traits affected significantly (P ≤ 0.05, 0.01 or 0.001) by all factors studied.8)Heritability estimates in narrow sense for all litter traits were low and moderate in B and Cal breeds, while in Gab ones