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.