| Summary: | Stature and weight are important growth and development traits for animals, which also significantly affect the productivity of livestock. Polymorphic adenoma gene 1 (<i>PLAG1</i>) is located in the growth-related quantitative trait nucleotides (QTN), and its variation has been determined to significantly affect the body stature of bovines. This study found that novel 15-bp InDel could significantly influence important growth traits in goats. The frequencies of genotypes of the 15-bp mutation and relationship with core growth traits such as body weight, body height, height at hip cross, chest circumference, hip width and body index were explored in 1581 individuals among 4 Chinese native goat breeds. The most frequent genotypes of Shaanbei white Cashmere goat (SWCG), Inner Mongolia White Cashmere goat (IMCG) and Guanzhong Dairy goat (GZDG) were II genotypes (insertion/insertion), and the frequency of ID genotype (insertion/deletion) was found to be slightly higher than that of II genotype in Hainan Black goat (HNBG), showing that the frequency of the I allele was higher than that of the D allele. In adult goats, there were significant differences between 15-bp variation and body weight, chest circumference and body height traits in SWCG (<i>p</i> < 0.05). Furthermore, the locus was also found to be significantly correlated with the body index of HNBG (<i>p</i> = 0.044) and hip width in GZDG (<i>p</i> = 0.002). In regard to lambs, there were significant differences in height at the hip cross of SWCG (<i>p</i> = 0.036) and hip width in IMWC (<i>p</i> = 0.005). The corresponding results suggest that the 15-bp InDel mutation of <i>PLAG1</i> is associated with the regulation of important growth characteristics of both adult and lamb of goats, which may serve as efficient molecular markers for goat breeding.
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