Molecular genetic characterization of Cornish broiler chickens

Five genetically diverse broiler lines, namely three Cornish lines (Cornish High, Mid and Low), a synthetic broiler line: PB2 and an Industry-origin Broiler Line: Px were profiled by a cumulative-lot of 118 polymorphic RAPD markers to delineate their molecular interrelationship. The three Cornish broiler lines were the result of 5 consecutive generations of divergent selection for response to sheep RBC (sRBC) inoculations. From a total of 40 decamer RAPD primers screened on this populations, only 11 were found to be polymorphic across these lines which gave rise to the above 118 RAPD markers. An average of 17.81 bands per primers was scored from these profiles, out of which 10.72 polymorphic bands per primer (60.20%), were polymorphic. Few of the significant RAPD markers namely, 400Bp fragment generated from primer PDP50F, 550Bp fragment from PDP56F and 600Bp fragment from PDP73F turned out to be prominent line- specific markers for Cornish Low, which established the usefulness of RAPD markers in differentiating diverse Broiler germplasms, conclusively. The genetic distance between Cornish Low and Px was maximum (0.48 ± 0.05), while the distance between Cornish Low and Cornish Mid was minimum (0.27 ± 0.04). It was concluded that RAPD markers were effective in detecting polymorphism and population-specific differences in broiler lines including the differentiation arisen due to divergent selection for five generations.