Mitochondrial sequence variation in ancient horses from the Carpathian Basin and possible modern relatives

Abstract

Movements of human populations leave their traces in the genetic makeup of the areas affected; the same applies to the horses that move with their owners This study is concerned with the mitochondrial control region genotypes of 31 archaeological horse remains, excavated from pre-conquest Avar and post-conquest Hungarian burial sites in the Carpathian Basin dating from the sixth to the tenth century. To investigate relationships to other ancient and recent breeds, modern Hucul and Akhal Teke samples were also collected, and mtDNA control region (CR) sequences from 76 breeds representing 921 individual specimens were combined with our sequence data. Phylogenetic relationships among horse mtDNA CR haplotypes were estimated using both genetic distance and the non-dichotomous network method. Both methods indicated a separation between horses of the Avars and the Hungarians. Our results show that the ethnic changes induced by the Hungarian Conquest were accompanied by a corresponding change in the stables of the Carpathian Basin.

Mitochondrial D-loop sequence variation among Hucul horse

“…It appears that the part of the D-loop region, which includes the position 15874, was studied only by Gurney et al (2010), however, the substitution was not described. As for the position 16113, it is not contained in the related analyses by Cothran et al (2005), Priskin et al (2010), or Georgescu et al (2011. Table 2 summarizes the data obtained for the 165 Hucul horses.…”

“…Figure 2 compares the present results with 13 sequences, as taken from GenBank database, of the Hucul horse. It is a well-known fact (Bowling et al, 2002;Hill et al, 2002;Kavar et al, 2002;Mirol et al, 2002;Cozzi et al, 2004;McGahern et al, Priskin et al, 2010) that the mtDNA D-loop region is very polymorphic. This also holds for the Huculs, as their genetic lines are not isolated (see Cieslak et al, 2010 for the most recent discussion of this topic).…”

“…The conservation strategy benefits from analyses of molecular genetics data describing this breed (Cothran et al, 2005;Židek et al, 2009;Priskin et al, 2010). In this work, we concentrate on an application of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) for the description of matrilineal genetics diversity in the Huculs.…”

“…The D-loop hypervariable region of the mtDNA is of particular interest because, unlike the protein-coding gene regions, it has a high level of sequence variation (Aquadro and Greenberg, 1983). Thus, the D-loop sequence variation combined with the lack of recombinations produce a highly informative tool for matrilineal relationship studies in horses (Bowling et al, 2000;Hill et al, 2002;Kavar et al, 2002;Mirol et al, 2002;Cozzi et al, 2004;Priskin et al, 2010). Here the D-loop hypervariable region of the mtDNA is investigated in as many as 15 maternal lines of the Hucul breed, for the total of 165 horses.…”

Myosin heavy chain pattern in the Akhal-Teke horses

“…There are very few previous studies in which the AkhalTeke breed has been used (Tikhonov et al, 1998;Szontagh et al, 2005;Priskin et al, 2010). Unfortunately, we did not -E-mail: katlin.leisson@emu.ee find any studies in which the muscle fiber types and MyHC isoform pattern in the Akhal-Teke horses and its age-related changes were determined.…”