The current study was designed to estimate the frequencies of putative leptin and ghrelin genes single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and investigate their association with estimated breeding values (EBVs) of growth traits in Baluchi sheep. Phenotypic information about several sheep growth traits on 112 purebred Baluchi sheep was collected. Effects of the association of the variants in the third exon of the leptin gene and the variants in the first exon of the ghrelin gene on the growth traits were examined on all individuals. Three conformational patterns were identified in the leptin gene but the ghrelin gene was not polymorphic in our experimental population using PCR–SSCP (polymerase chain reaction–single strand conformation polymorphism) analysis. Analysis of variance using the leptin SNP as the independent variable and EBVs as the dependent variable showed that the leptin SNP was significantly associated with additive EBVs for weight at 90 days (WW) (p<0.05) but no association of the leptin SNP with the other examined traits EBVs were found. Our findings suggest that polymorphisms in the leptin gene might be one of the important genetic factors that influence growth traits and maybe explain partial source of genetic variation.

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