Genetic Diversity of <i>Cyprinus carpio</i> var. <i>communis</i>, <i>Cyprinus carpio</i> var. <i>specularis</i> and <i>Carassius carassius</i> by DNA Based Markers

Abstract

To study genetic relationship of Cyprinus carpio var. communis, Cyprinus carpio var. specularis and Carassius carassiuscollected from different locations of Kashmir, India, two molecular approaches viz. PCR-RFLP of Cyt b gene and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) were used. Twenty five samples for each of the species collected from different locations of Kashmir, India were used for this study. Of the 12 random primers used 8 generated the polymorphism, while as four out of 7 restriction enzymes used gave polymorphic restriction patterns. The average proportion of polymorphic markers across restriction endonucleases was 74.4%, whereas random primers showed 82.23% polymorphism. The study showed RAPD marker efficiently helped in inter-and intra-species variation of the species. In contrast PCR-RFLP showed bias in detecting intraspecific variations. However, it was found an efficient tool for inter-specific variation between the species under study. The unweighted pair group method with averages (UPGMA) was used to construct two separate dendrogram for RAPD and PCR-RFLP which resulted in two clusters, one containing C. c. communis and C. c. specularis and the other included the C. carassius species. The Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that scale carp (C. c. communis) is closest to mirror carp (C. c. specularis) than crucian carp (Crassius carassius). Mean values of haplotype and nucleotide diversity across the species were 0.0200 and 1.0000±0.0113, respectively. Adding more populations with increased sample size of each species will be imperative to draw more definitive conclusions about species characterization within this region.