A Comparative Study of Major Milk Protein Polymorphism in Six Romanian Cattle Breeds

Abstract

Cattle milk received, since the first described polymorphism in 1955, an important attention due to the implication of major milk proteins genetic variants in milk quality, in some human diseases caused by milk consumption or due to the possibility of using the genetic variants as genetic markers for adulteration identification of dairy products. In our previous work, we established the genetic structure in the six major milk proteins loci, in four populations belonging to Romanian Simmental breed. Therefore, the objective of this study was to characterize the milk protein polymorphism in the rest of Romanian cattle breeds (including local breeds), in order to have a complete picture about the alleles frequencies in the six major milk protein loci in these breeds.