The study aimed at characterizing the Japanese quail using biochemical
markers. Blood protein polymorphism of one hundred and sixty-six (166)
Japanese quails of both sexes comprising of 83 each of mottled brown and
white quails were analysed using cellulose acetate paper electrophoresis. Six
loci which includes hemoglobin (Hb), transferrin (Tf), albumin (Alb),
carbonic anhydrase (CA), alkaline phosphatase (Alp) and esterase-1 (Es-1)
were tested. All the loci tested were polymorphic with each locus having two
co-dominant alleles controlling three genotypes. Allele B was predominant at
Hb, Tf and Es-1 locus with frequencies 0.90, 0.55, and 0.77, respectively
while Allele A was predominant at Alb and Alp locus with frequencies 0.83 and
0.58 respectively. The Allele A had generally lower frequencies than B at the
CA loci having values of 0.43 - Brown, 0.38 - White and 0.40 - overall. The
mean observed heterozygosity (Ho) was 0.48 with brown and white quails having
Ho values of 0.47 and 0.49 respectively, and the expected heterozygosity was
observed to be higher in white quails (0.39) than in the mottled brown
(0.31). The genetic distance (0.0534) between white and brown quails in this
study showed little genetic differentiation between the brown and the white
quails. Dendogram generated from the genetic distance values indicated that
the two strains had common origin.