Genetic diversity in Egyptian and Saudi goat breeds using microsatellite markers

Abstract

Objective: The genetic polymorphism within and among three indigenous goat breeds found in Egypt (Barki and Zaraibi) and in Saudi Arabia (Ardi) was detected by twelve microsatellites.
Methodology and results: A total of 95 blood samples were collected from the Egyptian and Saudi goat breeds. Genomic DNA was extracted from whole blood of each sample and microsatellites techniques were used for analysis of DNA. The results showed that, the total number of detected alleles varied from 2 (MMP9) to 16 (DRB2). The mean numbers of alleles per locus are 4.8, 4.3 and 6.2 in Barki, Ardi and Zaraibi, respectively. The mean of expected heterozygosity of the breeds ranged from 0.696 to 0.725. After corrections for multiple significance tests, deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were statistically significant over all populations and loci, reflecting the deficiencies of heterozygotes (global FIS=0.053). Based on pairwise FST and Nm between different breeds, there was a great genetic differentiation between Ardi goat and the other two Egyptian breeds, UPGMA dendrogram based on Nei’s genetic distance grouped the investigated goat breeds genotypes into two clusters. The first cluster includes Egyptian breeds (Barki and Zaraibi) where as the second cluster includes Saudi breed (Ardi) which appeared to be most distant from the other breeds.
Conclusions and application of findings. In conclusion, these results can be useful for the development of a rational breeding strategy for genetic improvement of goats in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The studied Mediterranean breeds sampled from African and Asian populations seem to have differentiated from each other with only little genetic exchange between the geographically isolated populations.

Key words: Microsatellites, Goats, Genetic diversity, Genotype.