Molecular characterization of Nagavali - A less-known sheep of Andhra Pradesh Prasanna B., Vinoo R., Metta Muralidhar2,*, Sesaiah Ch. Venkata1, Sudhakar Krovvidi, Punuru Panduranga Reddy3 Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding, NTR College of Veterinary Science, Gannavaram- 521102, Andhra Pradesh 1Livestock Farm Complex, NTR College of Veterinary Science, Gannavaram- 521102, Andhra Pradesh 2Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Veterinary Science, Garividi- 535101, Andhra Pradesh 3Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Veterinary Science, Proddatur- 516360, Andhra Pradesh *E-mail address: muralidharmetta@gmail.com
Online Published on 12 February, 2024. Abstract A study was aimed to characterize Nagavali sheep and its genetic differentiation from Nellore Jodipi sheep using microsatellite markers. Blood samples were collected from unrelated individuals of 56 Nagavali and 40 Nellore Jodipi sheep from Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam districts of Andhra Pradesh. The samples were genotyped using 30 FAO recommended panels of microsatellite markers. A total of 377 and 321 alleles were found in Nagavali and Nellore Jodipi sheep, respectively. The majority of the markers had > 0.7 polymorphism information content (PIC). The average heterozygosities for Nagavali and Nellore Jodipi sheep were 0.685 and 0.690, respectively. The bottleneck analysis showed that two sheep populations did not experience a recent reduction in population size. The mean FIS estimates were 0.086 for Nagavali and 0.084 for Nellore Jodipi sheep populations. The mean FST value was 0. 026. Nei's unbiased genetic distance was also low (0.016). The results suggest that the genetic differentiation between two populations is low. However, such low differentiation is not uncommon among Indian sheep breeds. Top Keywords Allelic diversity, Genetic distance, Heterozygosity, Microsatellites, Nagavali sheep. Top |