Abstract: In order to study the role of agouti-related protein（AGRP） gene in the skin melanin deposition of animals, Youzhou dark goat（Capra hircus）was selected as the research object. RNA was extracted from skin tissue by Trizol; the coding region（CDS） of AGRP was amplified by RT-PCR, and its structure and function were analyzed by bioinformatics. Phylogenetic tree was constructed to analyze the conservation of AGRP in goats and other mammals. Melanocytes were cultured in vitro, the relative expression of AGRP gene at different time points of cell proliferation and differentiation were detected by real-time quantitative PCR. This result showed that the CDS sequence length of AGRP gene in Youzhou dark goat was 405 bp, encoding 135 amino acids. The molecular weight of the encoded protein was 14 871.36 u, and its theoretical isoelectric point was 5.70. The secondary structure of AGRP protein contained 3 α-helices and 1 β-folded in the order of αααβ. The amino acid sequence of AGRP protein was highly similar among different species. In the phylogenetic tree, Youzhou dark goat has the closest relationship with Ovis aries and Capricus, but the relationship between Mus culus and Homo sapiens was the furthest. AGRP gene was expressed at different time points in the proliferation and differentiation stages of melanocytes. In the proliferation stage, the AGRP gene expression decreased gradually and then increased with the extension of cell culture time. And in the differentiation stage, the gene expression increased gradually with the extension of cell culture time, and the difference was extremely significant compared with 0 hour（P＜0.01）. The results indicated that AGRP gene had spatio-temporal specificity in melanocytes, which played an important role in the process of melanin deposition.