Genetic diversity and population structure of local and exotic sheep breeds in Jordan using microsatellites markers

Vet World Vol.11 June-2018 Article-7

Research Article

Veterinary World, 11(6): 778-781

https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2018.778-781

Khaleel I. Jawasreh¹, Mustafa M. Ababneh², Zuhair Bani Ismail³, Abdel Mon'em Bani Younes¹, and Ibrahem Al Sukhni¹

1. Department Animal Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, P. O. Box 2210, Jordan.
2. Department of Basic Veterinary Medical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, P. O. Box 2210, Jordan.
3. Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, P. O. Box 2210, Jordan.

Background and Aim: This study was conducted to study the genetic and population structure of local (Awassi) and exotic (Romanov, Charollais, Assaf, and Suffolk) sheep breeds in Jordan using eight microsatellite markers.

Materials and Methods: A total of 125 sheep were used (25 from each breed) in the study. The number of alleles (A), the mean values of observed (Ho) and expected (He) heterozygosity, polymorphism information content (PIC), fixation index as a measure of heterozygote deficiency or excess, and Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) were analyzed using PopGen and CERVUS softwares. Nei's standard genetic distances among breeds and dendrogram of unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) were calculated and constructed using PopGen software.

Results: A total of 40 alleles were detected with an average number of alleles of 5. The mean Ho value was higher than the mean He value for all breeds. Awassi breed showed the highest average PIC value while Romanov had the lowest. There was a significant (p<0.05) deviation from HWE at each locus within and between breeds. Deviations from HWE were found to be highly significant for all markers except OARFCP304 locus. The genetic distance estimates revealed a close relationship between Romanov and Charollais and between Awassi and Charollais. In the UPGMA dendrogram, Charollais, Romanov, and Awassi breeds were placed together in one main cluster while Assaf was in a different subcluster. Awassi was placed alone in a second main cluster.

Conclusion: Results of this study offer insight toward the genetic conservation of the studied breeds and a base on which breeding plans can be made. Keywords: genetic diversity, Jordan, microsatellites, sheep breeds.

Keywords: genetic diversity, Jordan, microsatellites, sheep breeds.

How to cite this article: Jawasreh KI, Ababneh MM, Ismail ZB, Younes AMB, Al Sukhni I (2018) Genetic diversity and population structure of local and exotic sheep breeds in Jordan using microsatellites markers, Veterinary World, 11(6): 778-781.

Received: 18-02-2018 Accepted: 07-05-2018 Published online: 09-06-2018

Corresponding author: Khaleel I. Jawasreh E-mail: kijawasreh@just.edu.jo

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2018.778-781

Copyright: Jawasreh, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.