430CORRELATION ANALYSIS BETWEEN GENETIC VARIATION OF ADAMTS1 GENE AND LITTER TRAIT IN SHEEPTo study the association between some important functional regions of ADAMTS1 gene and litter trait of Hu sheep, the test took Hu sheep as experimental group, meanwhile, treated Chinese indigenous breeds, which were Small Tail Han sheep, Wadi sheep, Altay sheep as control groups. ADAMTS1(a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs, ADAMTS1) was selected as candidate gene for reproductive trait, and according to the conservative region of pig, which was highly homologous to sheep, designed primers to amplify the gene for sheep. PCR-SSCP method was used to detect exon 7 and exon 8 of ADAMTS1 gene for polymorphism in four populations and analyze single nucleotide polymorphism and genetic variation in some important functional regions of the gene. The result showed that A→G mutation in exon 7 and T→C mutation in exon 8 were identified, respectively. In exon 7, genotype distributions conformed to HardyWeinberg equilibrium in all the groups except in Small Tail Han sheep, and there were no significant differences for genotype distributions in four groups. While in exon 8, genotype distribution conformed to Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in other groups except in Hu sheep. Moreover, in exon 7, GG genotype for lambing trait was 0.095 higher than GH genotype, and in exon 8, IJ genotype for lambing trait was 0.0533 higher than genotype II, which indicated that genotype GG and IJ had certain effects on the lambing trait in Hu sheep. However, the differences in two sites of different genotypes for litter size were not significant (P>0.05), which indicated that there was no significant difference between genotypes and litter trait. What’s more, it can be preliminarily considered that ADAMTS1 gene can’t be the candidate gene for Hu sheep.imaple14@163.comResearch5122015Sheep,ADAMTS,Genetic Variation, Litter Trait,Candidate GeneJian-jun Bao,Jing Wang,Wen Gao,Jia-rui Yu,Li-hong Wang, Xiao-yang LÜ,Qing-zeng Wang,Wei SunAnimal Science and Technology College, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, Jiangsu, China.,Animal Science and Technology College, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, Jiangsu, China.,Animal Science and Technology College, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, Jiangsu, China.,Animal Science and Technology College, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, Jiangsu, China.,Animal Science and Technology College, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, Jiangsu, China.,Animal Science and Technology College, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, Jiangsu, China.,Animal Science and Technology College, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, Jiangsu, China.,Animal Science and Technology College, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, Jiangsu, China.