Authors : S.A. Farrag, A.B. Tanatarov, M.E. Soltan, M. Ismail and O.M. Zayed
Abstract: Three Japanese quail lines A-C were examined genetically using 13 micro-satellite markers to detect genetic diversity. The studied loci on average produced 5 alleles locus•1 (range: 2-8). The mean observed Heterozygosity (Ho) was 0.609 and ranged across loci from 0.00-0.967 whereas the mean expected Heterozygosity (He) was 0.636 and ranged between 0.139 and 0.802. The Polymorphic Information Content (PIC) values varied among loci and ranged between 0.346 for locus GUJ0010 and 0.814 for locus GUJ0087 with overall mean 0.644. Differentiation among populations was moderate but highly significant (FST = 0.10, RST = 0.17; p<0.0001) however, within populations differentiation accounted for 3.61 and -0.73% of the total nuclear microsatellite variation under Infinite Allele Model (IAM) and Stepwise Mutation model (SSM), respectively. Cluster analysis based on Nei’s genetic distance indicated that the studied populations formed two main groups. The 1st group included line A and the 2nd group harboured lines B and C. These results reflect that the set of studied markers can be used effectively to capture the magnitude of genetic variability in different Japanese quail populations.
S.A. Farrag, A.B. Tanatarov, M.E. Soltan, M. Ismail and O.M. Zayed, 2011. Microsatellite Analysis of Genetic Diversity in Three Populations of Japanese Quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) from Kazakhstan. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 10: 2376-2383.