Molecular genotyping of some poultry populations using microsatellite markers

The genomic heterogeneity among four poultry populations’ viz.m, White Leghorn H and K strains, Aseel and Kadaknath was assessed using fifteen microsatellite loci. All the 15 microsatellite loci were polymorphic. The mean number of alleles (Na) varied from 2.0 to 5.0 among the loci and 3.13±0.13 to 3.80±0.13 among the populations. The effective number of alleles (Ne) varied from 1.041 to 4.755 across the loci and between 2.33±0.09 and 3.21±0.11 among the populations. The allele frequency ranged from 0.012 to 0.980 across the loci. The overall mean PIC values ranged from 0.038 to 0.756 across the loci and 0.434 to 0.579 among populations. The expected and observed heterozygosity estimates (0.634±0.020 and 0.723±0.031) were highest in Aseel, while lowest in IWH strain (0.500±0.022 and 0.471±0.034). The mean expected and observed heterozygosity estimates were 0.609 and 0.605 across the loci. Overall mean inbreeding coefficients for IWH, IWK, Kadaknath and Aseel were 0.205, 0.116,-0.052 and-0.130, respectively. The mean values of F_IS, F_ST and F_IT values over all the loci were-0.050±0.065, 0.051±0.008 and 0.003±0.064, respectively. The study revealed the existence of moderate genetic diversity in chicken populations studied and also showed that the markers used were highly informative and could be used in future studies involving chicken populations.