Mitochondrial Genetic Diversity and Phylogeography ofMus musculus castaneusin Northern Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Regions of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwestern India have been proposed as the place of origin of Mus musculus castaneus. But despite the fact that Pakistan encompasses an important part of its range, M. m. castaneus populations in Pakistan have not been the subject of intensive genetic and biogeographic studies, except for a very small number of samples included in past studies. We studied genetic variation in M. m. castaneus (CAS) from northern Punjab Province, Pakistan, by using cytochrome b (Cytb) analysis in a sample of 98 individuals. Median-joining network revealed four well differentiated CAS sub-lineages coexisting within a small geographical region; these had previously been thought to have largely non-overlapping geographic distributions. Moreover, haplotypes from Pakistan occupied a central position in the network and all identified global haplotypes were also present in Pakistan. All identified CAS sub-lineages proved to be highly diverse on the basis of haplotype and nucleotide diversity indices. Tajima's D test and Fu's Fs tests of neutrality suggest recent population expansions in all sub-lineages. Expansion times were estimated as 21,760-134,930, 10,800-64,400 and 4950-30,665 ybp using substitution rates of 2.5%, 5% and 11%, respectively. Our results support the hypothesis that northern Punjab Province in Pakistan is the most likely source area for M. m. castaneus, and that the CAS sub-lineages in this region have undergone rapid population expansion events at different time periods, which appear to have benefitted from human-mediated transport, although one of them clearly predates the establishment of human settlements in this region.

House mouse Mus musculus dispersal in East Eurasia inferred from 98 newly determined complete mitochondrial genome sequences

“…The mtDNA marker, which has played a significant role in tracing the phylogeographic history and population dynamics of M. musculus, as mentioned above, is useful because of its rapid evolution and lack of recombination, allowing genealogical patterns to be traced and divergence times to be estimated. Short fragments of mtDNA markers, such as the regulatory region (D-loop), cytochrome b (Cytb) and NADH dehydrogenase subunit 3 (Nd3) genes, have been used in previous studies (Nachman et al 1994;Prager et al 1998;Suzuki et al 2013;Jing et al 2014;Bibi et al 2017). However, their spatiotemporal dynamics remain poorly understood, presumably due to the small sizes of the markers, leading to insufficient resolution for identifying intricate branching patterns.…”

Late Quaternary Environmental and Human Impacts on the Mitochondrial DNA Diversity of Four Commensal Rodents in Myanmar

“…For M. musculus, all haplotypes from Myanmar belonged to CAS-1, which is known to occupy Pakistan, India, and Southeast and East Asian countries including China (Suzuki et al 2013;Chingangbam et al 2015;Bibi et al 2017;Myat Myat Zaw et al 2019). In this study, Myanmar haplotypes, together with those of the neighboring area of easternmost India (Manipur), are shown to form a star-like cluster (Table 2, Fig.…”

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“…may have evolved on the western and eastern plains of the Indochina peninsula, while M. cookii adapted to forest dwelling in more northern forested areas (Fig. 1), and extends as far west as the Himalayan foothills region of Pakistan (Bibi et al, 2017). The remaining species are grassland dwellers, and their speciation can be explained through geographic segregation, or stratification of shared distributions, after niche differentiation.…”

“…CAS contains three or four major mtDNA sub-lineages that diverged hundreds of thousands of years ago; among them, CAS-1 has spread over a wide area of eastern Eurasia (Figs 3C, 4). It extends to many regions of South and East Asia, including Pakistan, India, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Philippines, south and northeast China, Primorye, Sakhalin, and Japan (Suzuki et al, 2013;Kuwayama et al, 2017;Bibi et al, 2017). The network drawn from CAS-1 haplotypes has a star-shaped structure, indicative of rapid population expansion events.…”