Genetic diversity of Jiangsu native chicken breeds assessed with the mitochondrial DNA D-loop region

ABSTRACT

1. The objective of this study was to determine the origin and evolution of chickens from 5 native breeds that are traditionally raised in Jiangsu Province.

2. To address this question, the complete mitochondrial DNA D-loop sequence of 149 chickens from 5 native breeds of Jiangsu Province was analysed.

3. Sequence read lengths of the native breeds were 1231 to 1232 bp, with a single-base deletion from the 859 bp site in the 1231 bp haplotype. A total of 33 variable sites that defined 19 haplotypes were identified. The average haplotype diversity and nucleotide diversity were 0.862 ± 0.017 and 0.00591 ± 0.00135.

4. Phylogenetic analysis showed that genetic structure of the mtDNA haplotypes of Jiangsu chickens are distributed across 5 clades (haplogroups): Clades A, B, C, D, and E. However, most of the individuals characterised in this study belonged to clades A and B.

5. The results of this study indicate that Jiangsu chicken populations have relatively low nucleotide and haplotype diversity and likely share 5 common maternal lineages.

KEYWORDS:

• D-loop
• genetic diversity
• Jiangsu
• mtDNA
• native chicken; Langshan; Cochin

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant Numbers 31372277, 31501917, and 31672382]