East Friesian sheep carry a Myostatin allele known to cause muscle hypertrophy in other breeds

The East Friesian breed of sheep was developed in northern Germany and the Netherlands, and has become one of the world’s most productive dairy sheep. It is likely to have contributed to the foundation of other breeds, such as the Texel, which originated in the Netherland’s chain of West Friesian islands. The Texel is a meat breed that displays a muscle hypertrophy phenotype caused by a G to A substitution (g.+6723G>A) in the Myostatin gene.1 Given the likelihood of a common population history linking Texel and East Frisian, we sought to determine if the latter also carries the mutant g.+6723A Myostatin allele despite the divergent production profiles of the two breeds.