Genetic Characterization and Diversity Study of Indigenous Cattle Breeds Through Microsatellite Markers

The present study aims to understand the existing genetic diversity and structure of Six native cattle breeds (Rathi, Sahiwal, Kankrej, Nagori, Gir, and Tharpakar) adapted to the north-western arid and semi-arid region of India based on fourteen microsatellite markers. The mean number of observed and effective alleles in all the six population was overall in the range of Rathi was 3.667 and 2.926, respectively wherein the mean Shannon Index for the overall six populations showed the value of 1.114. The average expected heterozygosity values (0.622) indicated high diversity for this set of markers in all selected populations. High PIC values were observed foremost of the markers with an average of 0.5775.The fixation indices (FIS, FIT, and FST) values for each microsatellite locus for the overall population were found to be 0.118, 0.833, and 0.859, respectively. The high FIS and FIT values indicated a high level of inbreeding within and among the populations. The allele diversity (mean observed number of alleles 9.0, mean effective number of alleles 6.670) and gene diversity (0.845) values imply a substantial amount of genetic variability in all the populations. Reasonably high PIC values observed for most of the markers, with an average PIC value of 0.5609 across all the loci imply that this set of microsatellites is very informative for the evaluation of genetic diversity and characterization in all the breeds.