Molecular genetic characterization of Berari breed of goat using microsatellite markers^#

Berari is 23^rd recognized goat breed of India with accession number INDIA_GOAT_1100_BERARI_06023. A battery of 25 selected micro-satellite markers was used to study the genetic variability in Berari goat breed. The observed number of alleles ranged from 9 (ILSTS059, RM004) to 25 (ILSTS005, ILSTS029) with an average value of 15.560±0.947. The effective number of alleles ranged from 6.036 (RM088) to 16.736 (ILSTS029) with the overall mean value of 10.214±0.602. The average expected gene diversity within the population ranged from 0.834 (RM004) to 0.940 (ILSTS029) with an overall mean of 0.895±0.006. All of the studied loci showed the polymorphic information content value greater than 0.5 with an average value of 0.886±0.007, these high values of PIC indicated higher polymorphism in the breed. The values Shannon's information index were found be in the range from 1.946 (LSTS059) to 2.981 (ILSTS029) with an average 2.456±0.058. Sixteen out of total 25 studied loci showed significant heterozygote deficiency (positive Fis value). The positive values of the F_is ranged from 0.008 (ILSTS034) to 0.599 (OMHC1) with an overall mean of 0.125. Bottleneck was examined assuming all three mutations models and was found to be absent. The high level of genetic variability, however, suggested the scope for further genetic improvement of Berari goats.