Variability of Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia (Gift Tilapia) Crossed With Upm Red Tilapia Hybrids By Mitochondrial DNA Conserved Region Sequence

Mitochondrial DNA conserved region (mtDNA CR) segment of a cross between GIFT tilapia and UPM red tilapia, their F1-hybrid (F1) and Backcross (BcF1) was used to define their genetic variability. DNA was extracted from 25 randomly selected specimens of each of the test strains and mtDNA CR primer ORMT-F ORMT-R was used. The MEGA software using Maximum Parsimony (MP) was conducted for the evolutionary analysis of the strains using Tilapia rendalli (AF484717.1 accession numbers from NCBI database). A total of 441 polymorphic regions of 99 sequencing sites were observed, the sites with 12 alignment gaps were missing while the invariable monomorphic sites were 360 (81.6%) with 69 (15.6%) variable polymorphic sites. Parsimony informative sites were 68 with 1 singleton variable site. The conserved regions were effective in discriminating between the sampled fish because they contained important elements that aid replication and expression of the mitochondria genome. The clustering of the strain in the sub-tree of the phylogeny verifies a monophyletic relationship although some of the strains showed more relatedness by their consistent overlap and clustering. Similarly with 0.1 genetic variability conserve region could be used for discrimination between the strains.