However, contrary to sheep, in goats more than one prion protein (PrP) polymorphism has been recognized as a candidate for resistance breeding against the disease. Scrapie is considered an endemic disease in both sheep and goats in Greece. Therefore, the polymorphisms detected in this sample of Romanian goat breeds are too rare to design a breeding program at the current time. The K222 allele had a frequency of 6% (3/50) in Carpathian, 9.43% (5/53) in Banat's White, and 15.09% (8/53) in French Alpine. PRNP polymorphism was recorded in 60% (9/15) of codons. The codons without polymorphisms were G37G, W102W, N146N, R151R, S173S, and I218I. In the targeted goat groups, one classical scrapie-positive Banat's White goat was included. Whole blood and hair follicles from Carpathian (50), French Alpine (53), and Banat's White (53) breed goats were sampled to extract genomic DNA for genetic analyses and Sanger sequencing. This work aims to assess the genetic polymorphism at 15 PRNP codons in Romanian goat populations to inform the development of goat breeding programs for scrapie resistance.

The variability of prion protein gene (PRNP) codons and the frequency of alleles (K222, D146, and S146) that appear to confer genetic resistance to classical scrapie are still unknown in several goat populations/breeds prevalent in Romania.

Largest caprine