maturation and hormonal activity of ovarian follicles in
chickens by regulating steroidogenesis, proliferation and
apoptosis during sexual maturation ( HRABIA et al. 2011;
AHUMADA-SOLORZANO et al. 2012). FENG et al. (1997) analyzed
alleles of the growth hormone ( GH ) gene and GH
receptor ( GHR ) gene in association with juvenile body
weight (HBWT), age at fi rst egg (AFE), the hen-day rate
of egg production (HDR), egg specifi c gravity (SPG), and
egg weight (EWT) in a strain of white leghorns and found
that the GH genotype was signifi cantly associated with
AFE and HDR from day 274 to 385 and day 386 to 497.
Another report also demonstrated the mode of action of
GH through IGF-I on oocyte maturation ( SARANG and
LAL 2005).
There has been no report that examined GH as a candidate
gene for muscovy duck reproductive traits. In
the present study, we identifi ed a polymorphism in this
gene sequence, investigated its allele frequencies and
tested for association with egg performance in white
muscovy ducks. Furthermore, we analyzed the tissue
expression of GH in muscovy ducks using RT-qPCR.