Resumo:
The Pêga donkey breed originated from the crossbreeding of Egyptian and Italian breeds in the region of Lagoa Dourada, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. This breed is traditionally used to produce gaited donkeys and mules for competitions, with gait quality being one of the main traits evaluated during the registration process by the ABCJPêga breed association. The DMRT3 gene contains a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), g.22999655C>A, known to influence locomotor coordination in horses. The mutant allele (A) of this SNP introduces a premature stop codon, leading to early termination of the protein. Since this polymorphism is also present in donkeys, the aim of this study was to investigate a possible association between the DMRT3 gene alleles and gait scores in Pêga donkeys. For this purpose, 260 animals were analyzed, with DNA extracted from hair follicles and genotyping performed using PCR followed by Sanger sequencing. The results showed that all individuals were homozygous for the wild-type allele (C), and the mutant allele (A) was not detected in any of the samples. Therefore, it is concluded that, in the population analyzed, there is no evidence of influence of the mutant allele of the DMRT3 gene on the gait score of Pêga donkeys, and that the gaited locomotion in this species may have evolved differently from that of the equine species.
