Genet. Sel. Evol. 40 (2008) 681-692
DOI: 10.1051/gse:2008027

Genetic variation in eight Chinese cattle breeds based on the analysis of microsatellite markers

Weibin Sun¹, Hong Chen^{1, 2}, Chuzhao Lei¹, Xueqin Lei³ and Yinghan Zhang<sup>1

1</sup>  College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology for Agriculture, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China
²  Institute of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Xuzhou Normal University, Xuzhou, Jiangsu 221116, China
³  Henan Sci-tech University, Luoyang, Henan 471000, China

Received 16 December 2007; accepted 16 May 2008; published online 24 October 2008

Abstract - Genetic variability and genetic relationships were investigated among eight Chinese cattle breeds using 12 microsatellite markers. Three hundred and fifty-two alleles were detected and the average number of alleles per locus ranged from in the Jiaxian breed to in the Qinchuan breed with a mean value of 13.91. The total number of alleles per microsatellite ranged from 21 (INRA005, HEL1) to 40 (HEL13), with a mean of 29.33 per locus. The fixation indices at the 12 loci in the eight breeds were very low with a mean of 0.006. A principal components analysis and the construction of a neighborjoining tree showed that these eight Chinese cattle breeds cluster into three groups i.e. the Yanbian andChineseHolstein, theNanyang and Jiaxian, and the four remaining breeds.This clustering agrees with the origin and geographical distributions of these Chinese breeds.

Key words: Chinese cattle breed / microsatellite DNA / genetic variability / genetic relationship

Corresponding author: chenhong1212@263.net

© INRA, EDP Sciences 2008