In the tissues investigated in the study, KRTAP20-2 mRNA was only identified in secondary hair follicles, but not in heart, liver, lung, kidney, spleen, and muscle. This is consistent with finding sreported for Liaoning cashmere goats, where KRTAP7-1 and KRTAP8-2 were only expressed inhair follicles and not in heart, liver, spleen, lung, and kidney tissues [12], and the observation of Rogers et al. [34] that a large number of the KAP family members were exclusively expressed in hair follicles. Given that cashmere fibre is produced by secondary hair follicles, it could be inferred that the specific expression of KRTAP20-2 in secondary hair follicles may at least in part be responsible forfibre traits.