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

Oxytocin (OXT) is a very abundant nonapeptide neurohypophysial hormoneimplicated in several aspects of reproduction, including social, sexual and maternalbehaviour, induction of labour and milk ejection. The nucleotide sequence of the whole OXTneurophysinI encoding gene (OXT) in Mediterranean river buffalo was determined, plus993 nucleotides at the 5' flanking region. Buffalo oxytocin gene sequence analysis showedtwo 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 theArg97->Leu aa substitution which identifies an allele named OXT B. A PCR-RFLP basedmethod for a rapid identification of carriers of these alleles has been developed.