Mediterranean river buffalo oxytocin-neurophysin I (OXT) gene: structure, promoter analysis and allele detection

Oxytocin (OXT) is a very abundant nonapeptide neurohypophysial hormone
implicated in several aspects of reproduction, including social, sexual and maternal
behaviour, induction of labour and milk ejection. The nucleotide sequence of the whole OXTneurophysin
I encoding gene (OXT) in Mediterranean river buffalo was determined, plus
993 nucleotides at the 5' flanking region. Buffalo oxytocin gene sequence analysis showed
two transitions in the promoter region (C->T in position - 966 and G->A in position - 790)
and one transversion G->T at the 170th nucleotide of the second exon, responsible for the
Arg97->Leu aa substitution which identifies an allele named OXT B. A PCR-RFLP based
method for a rapid identification of carriers of these alleles has been developed.