Genetic Differentiation Degree and Time of Divergence Between Chinese Chicken Populations Inferred from Micro Satellite Data

Abstract

Five chicken populations in Yangzhou and Haimen cities, both in Jiangsu Province, East China that have recently arose the attention of poultry researchers are the New Yangzhou (NY-1), Rugao (HR-1), Jiangchun (HJ-2), Wan-Nan (HW-3) and the Cshiqishi (HC-4) chickens, respectively. Genetic differentiation degree, genetic distances and the actual time of divergence between these chicken populations were obtained by employing a suite of marker panel containing five carefully selected Micro satellite loci with 81 genomic DNAs isolated from the chicken`s blood samples. The isolated genomic DNAs were subjected to polymerase chain reaction (PCR); with all the loci involving 35 cycles carried out in a ready-to-go-thermo cycler and amplified products analyzed. Allele frequencies data were generated in the initial analyses using Pop Gene 32 software and used to compute multi-populations expected heterozygosity (H), across population`s genetic differentiation degree (F_ST) for each locus and the genetic distances (D_ij) between population pairs considering all loci. The F_ST obtained ranged from 0.0082 (MCW4) to 0.0415 (ADL 176). The D_ij between population pairs computed were used to calculate the divergence time (t) in years. The estimated time of divergence between these chicken populations oscillates between 167 (Wan-Nan vs. Cshiqishi) and 1954 years (Rugao vs. Jiangchun), respectively.