Abstract: In order to clone the CDS region of sheep vitamin D receptor（VDR） gene and explore its sequence characteristics and tissue expression, the CDS region of sheep VDR gene was obtained by cloning and sequencing technology, and bioinformatics analysis was carried out by softwares. Real-time PCR was used to detect the expression difference of VDR in the tissues of 1-month-old and 12-month-old male and female sheep. The results showed that the total length of CDS region of sheep VDR gene was 1 278 bp, encoding 425 amino acids. The molecular weight of VDR protein was 48 043.56, the theoretical pI was 5.90, the instability index was 55.77, and the grand average of hydropathicity was-0.483. Therefore, it belonged to unstable acidic hydrophilic protein. VDR protein contained 51 phosphorylation sites, which did not have transmembrane structure and signal peptide, and mainly existed in nucleus and cytoplasm. The secondary structure mainly included random coil, α-helix and β-sheet, there was an obvious groove region in the tertiary structure, which may bind to DNA and regulate gene transcription. VDR gene was expressed in the heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, longissimus dorsi muscle, ovary, testis and small intestine of male and female sheep at the age of 1 month and 12 months, and the highest expression was in the small intestine. The relative expression of VDR gene in the liver, spleen, ovary, testis and small intestine of sheep at 12 months of age was significantly higher than that at 1 month of age（P＜0.01）, while the relative expression of VDR gene in the heart and longissimus dorsi muscle of sheep at 1 month of age was significantly higher than that at 12 months of age（P＜0.01）, but there was no significant difference between 1 month old sheep and 12 months old sheep in lung and kidney（P＞0.05）. The results indicated that VDR gene was widely expressed in various tissues of sheep, and the expression trend in each tissue/organs was different with the increase of age, suggesting the universality and multiplicity of its function. In addition, the relative expression level of VDR gene in the small intestine was the highest, suggesting that VDR gene was closely related to intestinal material absorption.