Genetic similarity and diversity among three camel populations reared in Egyp
Background
Molecular geneticshas been extremely useful in determining the relation between animal populations and documenting the degrees ofgenetic variationfound within them. The present study was undertaken to evaluategenetic diversityand the relationships between the three camel populations reared in Egypt: Maghrabi, Sudani, and Baladi using mitochondrial 16S sequences and other breeds of camels in the world.
Methods
Blood samples were collected from camels belonging to these three populations.Genomic DNAwas extracted from the collected blood samples and subjected to PCR using specific primers for mitochondrial 16S region. The amplified products were purified using DNApurificationkit to remove residual primers and dNTPs. Sequencing was performed in the Macrogen Incorporation. The amplified products were submitted to GenBank/NCBI under accession numbers OM 278349 and OM 278350
Results
Sequencing was done on the partial mitochondrial 16S amplified fragments at 530 bp. This amplified area had two haplotypes. There was one substitution (G/A) at nucleotide 309 of the amplified segment. The nucleotide (π) and Hd stand for haplotype diversity, respectively, at 0.00008 and 0.042, and the average number of pairwise nucleotide differences, k, is 0.042, according to Fu’s Fs statistic and Tajima’s D, which is −1.10686. Genetic distance percentages between the three populations under study range from 0.000 to 0.0312. Aphylogenetic analysisof Egyptian camel populations and otherCamelus dromedariuspopulations revealed a strong relationship between them.
Conclusions
This study suggests that the16S rRNAsequencing in mitochondria plays a critical role in genetic variation studies and analysis of phylogeny between camel populations and breeds.