Genetic diversity of different breeds of Kazakh sheep using microsatellite analysis

Abstract

A total of 75 individuals from five sheep populations in Kazakhstan were investigated based on 12 STR (short tandem repeat, also known as microsatellite) markers in order to study their genetic structure and phylogenetic relationship based on genetic distances. These sheep had a high level of genetic diversity. In total, 163 alleles were found in all the populations using 12 microsatellite loci. The mean number of alleles, effective number of alleles, and polymorphism information content (PIC) values per loci were 13.4, 5.9, and 0.78, respectively. Comparing the allelic diversity between the populations, the highest genetic diversity was observed in the Edilbay-1 sheep breed (8.333±0.644), and the lowest parameter was for Kazakh Arkhar-Merino (7.083±0.633). In all populations, there is a deficiency of heterozygosity. The largest genetic diversity was found in loci INRA023 and CSRD247 with 16 alleles, and the smallest polymorphism was noted for the locus D5S2 with 8 alleles. The level of observed heterozygosity was in the range 0.678±0.051 for Kazakh Arkhar-Merino and 0.767±0.047 for Kazakh fat-tailed coarse wool. The expected heterozygosity level range was from 0.702±0.033 for Kazakh Arkhar-Merino to 0.777±0.023 for Edilbay-1. When 12 microsatellite loci are compared, the OarFCB20 locus showed the highest level of genetic variability. Excess of heterozygosity was observed at three loci; MAF065, McM042, and OarFCB20. The highest genetic distance was observed between Kazakh Arkhar-Merino and Edilbay-1, whereas the genetic distance between Edilbay-1 and Edilbay-2 is the smallest using Nei's standard genetic distance. The Edilbay-1 sheep breed possesses the largest genetic diversity among these five populations.

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

“…Compared with foreign sheep breeds, the intensity of artificial selection in Chinese sheep breeds is weak, which may be the reason for their high genetic diversity. Finally, the F ST among nine sheep populations (7.9 %) is similar to results of other studies in sheep (Dossybayev et al, 2019;Dudu et al, 2020), implying that a moderate genetic differentiation (5 %-15 %) exists among sheep populations. The results of the UPGMA phylogenetic tree and structure analysis are consistent with breeding history of these sheep breeds.…”

“…Firstly, overall, the nine sheep populations in this study have high genetic diversity and their mean H E and H O reached 0.71 and 0.68, respectively. The higher the genetic heterozygosity, the greater the variation of population (Bai et al, 2014;Dotsev et al, 2018;Jawasreh et al, 2018). Therefore, the large genetic variation existed within these investigated sheep populations.…”

“…Microsatellite markers belong to a class of neutral markers, which have rich polymorphism in population and are widely distributed in the genome; therefore they are suitable for genetic diversity analysis. Previous studies indicated that microsatellite markers had been well used to assess genetic diversity and population structure of sheep breeds (Di et al, 2012;Dotsev et al, 2018;Madilindi et al, 2019;Vargas et al, 2018;Laoun et al, 2020;Ullah et al, 2020) and goat breeds (Carvalho et al, 2015;Câmara et al, 2017;E et al, 2019;Liu et al, 2019). Therefore, in this study, a panel of 26 microsatellite markers was employed to evaluate the genetic diversity, population structure and phylogenetic relationship of the nine sheep populations.…”

SNP Genotyping Characterizes the Genome Composition of the New Baisary Fat-Tailed Sheep Breed

“…It is characterized by the following valuable productive and biological characteristics: early maturity and large live weight, strong constitution, coarse wool, taut fat-tail (large, medium, small), fitness and adaptability to desert, semi-desert and foothill breeding zones [ 3 ]. Currently, Kazakhstan farms more than 20 indigenous sheep breeds [ 4 ]. Each of the native sheep breeds has been studied for its phenotypic traits, and lately, studies have been published on the genetic characterization of the Kazakh indigenous sheep breeds using different molecular markers [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ].…”

Identifications of immune-responsive genes for adaptative traits by comparative transcriptome analysis of spleen tissue from Kazakh and Suffolk sheep

“…It is a polled, black-faced breed, and is raised primarily for its meat. It has been exported to many countries 20 . Suffolk sheep were imported to the temperate continental climate of Xinjiang China from the Mediterranean climate of Western Australia for a breeding program to improve the genetics of mutton production.…”