Analysis of genetic relationship among three varieties of indigenous Kadaknath breed using 25 chicken microsatellite markers

The genetic variability of three varieties of indigenous Kadaknath breed of poultry was evaluated using 25 microsatellite markers. All the 25 microsatellite markers were found to be polymorphic in all the three varieties. Number of alleles observed for all the markers varied from 3 to 10. Allele size of polymorphic loci ranged from 98-356 bp and showed very large variation across loci. Average heterozygosity values were found to be 0.721, 0.694 and 0.689 in Jet black, Golden and Pencilled varieties, respectively. Overall heterozygosity value for all the microsatellite loci among all the three varieties was found to be 0.701. Average polymorphic information content (PIC) values were found to be 0.671, 0.699, and 0.617 in Jet black, Golden and Pencilled varieties, respectively. Overall PIC values for all the microsatellite loci among all the three varieties were found to be 0.662. The Nei’s standard genetic distance (Ds) values between Jet black and Golden, Jet black and Pencilled, and Golden and Pencilled varieties were found to be 0.1678, 0.0951 and 0.1943 respectively. Phylogenetic consensus tree constructed using the boostrapped data and neighbour-joining method grouped all the three varieties into one cluster. Therefore, it is concluded that all the three varieties of Kadaknath breed had negligible genetic distance between each other.