Genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationship of nine sheep populations based on microsatellite markers

Abstract

Abstract. The objective of this study was to assess the genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationship of nine sheep populations, including two famous high prolific populations and seven popular mutton populations raised in China. Overall, these sheep populations in this study exhibited a rich genetic diversity. Both the expected heterozygosity and Nei's unbiased gene diversity ranged from 0.64 to 0.75, with the lowest value found in Dorset sheep (DST) and the highest in Hu sheep (HUS) and Ba Han sheep (BAS). The polymorphic information content (PIC) varied between 0.59 in DST and 0.71 in HUS and BAS. Specifically, for individual breeds, the small-tail Han sheep (STH) and the four introduced populations did not display the expected diversity; therefore more attention should be paid to the maintenance of diversity during management of these populations. The results of un-weighted pair-group method (UPGMA) phylogenetic tree and structure analysis indicated that the nine investigated populations can be divided into two groups. Suffolk (SUF) and DST were clustered in one group, and the other group can be further divided into three clusters: German Mutton Merino (GMM)–BAS–Bamei Mutton sheep (BAM), HUS–STH and Du Han (DOS)–Dorper (DOP). This clustering result is consistent with sheep breeding history. TreeMix analysis also hinted at the possible gene flow from GMM to SUF. Together, an in-depth view of genetic diversity and genetic relationship will have important implications for breed-specific management.

Molecular phylogenetic analysis for Ovis aries with whole mitochondrial genome sequencing

“…Evolution of sheep has been studied by a number of scientists across the globe based on D-loop, ND or Cytochrome B gene as mitochondrial gene 1–9 . The current study revealed that mitochondrial genes with all 37 genes including 13 coding genes and rest non coding and a control region (D loop), provide a better in site for evolutionary studies.…”

“…Studies on sheep evolution and hylogenetic analysis have been studied across the globe based on either single or two mitochondrial gene, microsatellite, SNP or Y chromosome, but phylogenetic analysis through complete mitochondrial genome sequences are reported here for the first time. Molecular phylogeny for sheep have been studied in different countries as Nepal 33 , India 34,1 , China 9 , Tibetan sheep 5 , Europe 4,8 , Kenya 6 , Bangladesh 7 .…”

“…Certain other researchers have also studied molecular evolution for sheep based on mitochondrial gene as Cytochrome B and D loop 1–7 . Apart from mitochondrial genes, group of Scientists have studied molecular evolution of sheep based on SNPs 8 or through microsatellite marker 9 .…”

Microsatellite Genotyping of Two Bulgarian Sheep Breeds

“…One of the most commonly used techniques for elucidating the genetic structure and genetic identification of different breeds of sheep is genotyping using microsatellite markers [24,25]. Microsatellites or short tandem repeats (STRs) are well-known DNA markers, which have been used in a variety of applications requiring highly polymorphic and locus-specific genetic systems-for example, in paternity testing, linkage analysis, population and evolutionary genetics, calculation of genetic distances and inbreeding rates, and detection of genetic admixture [26,27].…”

Some aspects of DNA analysis in the selection of small ruminants

“…Microsatellite markers could use to analyze genetic diversity in sheep breeds (Gaouar et al, 2012;Liu et al, 2014;Ebrahimi et al, 2017;Xia et al, 2021), goat (Bindu et al, 2012Hussain et al, 2013;Seilsuth et al, 2016;Asroush et al, 2018), and the other domestic animals (Petrovic et al, 2018).…”