SHORT COMMUNICATIONS Identification of polymorphism in fatty acid binding protein 3 (FABP3) gene and its association with milk fat traits in riverine buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) Praveen Kumar Dubey 1,2 & Shubham Goyal 1,3 & Shailendra Kumar Mishra 1 & Reena Arora 1 & Manishi Mukesh 1 & Saket Kumar Niranjan 1 & Periasamy Kathiravan 1,4 & Ranjit Singh Kataria 1,5 Received: 22 July 2015 /Accepted: 10 February 2016 /Published online: 19 February 2016 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 Abstract The fatty acid binding protein 3 (FABP3) gene, known to be associated with fat percentage of milk and meat in bovines, was screened among swamp and riverine buffaloes for polymorphism detection and further association with milk fat contents. An SNP g.307C > T was identified in the intron 2 (+53 exon 2) region of FABP3 gene of Indian buffaloes. The SNP identified was genotyped in 692 animals belonging to 15 riverine, swamp and hybrid (riverine × swamp) buffalo popu- lations of diverse phenotypes and utilities, by PCR-RFLP. A marked contrast was observed between the C and T allele frequencies in three types of buffaloes. The frequency of C allele ranged from 0.67 to 0.96 in pure swamp buffalo popu- lations, with the highest in Mizoram (0.96). Whereas the fre- quency of T allele was high across all the Indian riverine buffalo breeds, ranging from 0.57 to 0.96. None of the geno- types at FABP3 g.307C> T locus was found to have signifi- cant association with milk fat and other production traits in Mehsana dairy buffalo breed. Our study revealed marked dif- ferences in the allele frequencies between riverine and swamp buffaloes at FABP3 g.307C > T locus, without any significant association with different milk traits in riverine buffaloes. Keywords Buffalo . FABP3 . Milk fat trait . Polymorphism . Association Introduction The fat percentage is a major determinant of the quality as well as consumer demand of milk. Considerable variation in milk fat across the livestock species and breeds influences the eco- nomic value of the milk (Gibson, 1991). Among the tradition- al dairy animals, the highest milk fat is found in buffalo (Kanwal et al., 2004). A number of candidate genes with significant effect on fat contents of milk and meat have been identified in cattle. The fatty acid binding protein (FABP) family, consisting of nine proteins, is associated with intracel- lular transport of long-chain fatty acids and other lipids, re- ported to be associated with meat and milk fat percentage in different livestock species (Liang et al., 2014, Ibrahim et al., 2014). Among these genes, FABP3 expressed mainly in mam- mary gland, is reported to be associated with milk fat regula- tion (Bionaz and Loor, 2008). The mammary-derived growth inhibitor (MDGI), a similar protein was identified in mamma- ry glands and subsequent sequencing, mapping and homology studies have proven that FABP3 and MDGI genes are the identical genes (Nevo et al., 2010). The FABP3 gene has been mapped to bovine chromosome 2 and chromosome 6 in pigs within QTL regions identified for fat traits (Cho et al., 2008). Polymorphism in the FABP3 gene has also been associated with fat traits in cattle (Chmurzynska et al., 2007, Yardibi, et al., 2013) and pigs (Cho et al., 2011). Apart from the cDNA sequence and homology of buffalo * Ranjit Singh Kataria katariaranji@yahoo.co.in 1 National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources, Karnal 132001, Haryana, India 2 Immune regulation, WPI-IFREC, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan 3 Omics Application Technology Group, RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies, Yokohama, Japan 4 Animal Production and Health Section, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria 5 Animal Biotechnology Division, National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources, P.O. Box 129, GT Road By-Pass, Karnal 132001, Haryana, India Trop Anim Health Prod (2016) 48:849–853 DOI 10.1007/s11250-016-1017-6