Evaluation of Genetic Variability between Local White Chicken and Commercial Lines by RAPD-PCR and Sequencing of 18s rRNA Gene

Abstract

The present study investigated and identified genetic diversity between native White chicken lines and two commercial Broiler (Rose) and Layer (Isa Brown) chicken breeds using RAPD markers and a sequencing technique. All primers applied produced 151 scorable bands with percentage polymorphic loci of 54.93% within chicken populations, as per the results of the RAPD marker. The maximum amplified fragment by primer OPC-11 was 22 and the fewest by primer OPAA-03 was 7. For all loci analyzed, the effective number of alleles (ne), means the observed number of alleles (na), Shannon's information index (I), and gene diversity (h) was 1.4394, 1.5493, 0.3496, and 0.2441, respectively. The presence of a high number of polymorphisms and targeted (71) loci across all chicken populations indicates that RAPD-PCR techniques provide sufficient genetic distance and higher genetic variation among chicken populations. The highest identity of the blasted sequences of the 18srRNA gene of local white chicken is 90.41% and 84.23%. Likewise, a total of 46 and 27 nucleotides are altered with 27 and 10 gaps in both sequences for the first and second regions, respectively. According to both phylogenetic trees, the local white chicken had a stronger sense of individuality and was slightly closer to the commercial broiler breeds than the layer chicken breeds. As a result, it suggests that enhancing the local chicken line requires a broiler breeding program, as well as cross-breeding with other native chicken lines to obtain hereditarily significant new strains.