MICROSATELLITE ANALYSIS OF INDIGENOUS DUCKS OF ASSAM

Abstract

Indigenous duck breed of Assam are popular with considerable production potential with minimal input and mostly reared under semi intensive system of management. These ducks are maintained in all agro climatic zones of Assam and different from other indigenous duck genetic resources available in the country. But the genetic structure of these duck varieties was not fully studied; hence the genetic characterization of Assam ducks was assessed with 23 FAO recommended duck specific microsatellite markers using advanced automated genotyping technique. The analysis revealed that totally 91alleles were observed with the number ranging from 1 (CAUD025) to 7 (CAUD004 and APH009) and an overall mean of 3.957 ± 0.32 across the loci. The mean observed and expected heterozygosities were 0.4444 and 0.5113. All the microsatellite loci were found to be highly polymorphic except CAUD025. In Assam ducks, PIC value ranged from 0.14 (APH001) to 0.71 (CAUD004) with a mean value of 0. 4813. Nearly 14 out of 23 loci had PIC values of more than 0.5 indicating that these markers can be effectively used for genetic diversity analysis. The Chi-square test revealed that among the 23 microsatellite studied, only 12 were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium proportions and the rest departed from equilibrium. Selection and non-random mating could be the main reasons for this disequilibrium. The markers used in the study were found to be highly informative, explores high genetic variation in the population which could be exploited for their improvement.