Rapid visual detection of gene expression in sheep.

Sheep play an important role in agricultural production and people's lives, and fecundity is one of the most important economic traits of sheep for sheep breeders. The Booroola fecundity () gene has a certain correlation with litter size in sheep. Therefore, this study aims to detect expression quickly, accurately and visually. Here, we used the nucleic acid dye SYBR Green I to detect with the amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS), which can efficiently, rapidly, economically and visually detect expression in sheep. After ARMS polymerase chain reaction (PCR), SYBR Green I was directly added to the ARMS products, and whether the sheep carried was judged by directly observing the color change in the PCR tube. Homozygous (BB) or heterozygous (B+) samples with mutation were bright green, while wild type (++) samples without were orange yellow. This study suggested that this method has 100% accuracy and 0.5 ng/µL sensitivity. To our knowledge, this is the first report that shows the integration of the ARMS with SYBR Green I to detect expression in sheep visually.