Aim: This study aimed to analyze the genetic diversity and relationships of 10 Egyptian pigeon populations belonging to
Columba livia domestica species using 11 microsatellite markers and to investigate the success of these markers amplification
across another eight pigeon species.
Methods: Genomic DNA was isolated from feather samples of 179 pigeon samples from 10 Egyptian breeds: Asfer Weraq
(n=14), Austoraly (n=20), Reehani (n=21), Messawed (n=17), Nemssawy (n=27), Otatti (n=12), Morasla (n=17), Tumbler
(n=22), Halaby Asfer (n=10), and Karakandy (n=19) in addition to Japanese feral pigeons (n=30). Genotyping was done
using 11 specific polymorphic microsatellite makers. Moreover, 37 samples not belonging to C. livia domestica but belonging
to another eight pigeon species were genotyped. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products were electrophoresed on
an ABI 3130xl DNA Sequencer. The basic measures of genetic diversity and phylogenetic trees were computed using
bioinformatics software.
Results: Across the 10 studied Egyptian populations, the number of alleles per locus ranged from 3 to 19 and the average
number of alleles observed was 9.091. The lowest value of expected heterozygosity (0.373) was obtained for the Reehani
breed, and the highest value (0.706) was found for Morasla breed. The overall expected heterozygosity of Egyptian pigeons
was 0.548. The FST coefficient which indicates fixation coefficients of subpopulations within the total population for the 11
loci varied from 0.318 to 0.114 with a relatively high mean (0.226). In our study, the FIS showed a relatively high average
(0.037). The pairwise Reynolds’s genetic distance between the 11 studied pigeon populations recorded lower values between
Otatti and Austoraly (0.025) and between Morasla and Japanese feral pigeons (0.054). These results are supported by
clustering pattern either by the neighbor-joining phylogenetic tree or by a Bayesian clustering of STRUCTURE with the
admixture method.
Conclusion: We confirm the applicability of the CliμD17, CliμT17, CliμD16, CliμD32, CliμT13, CliμD01, PG1, PG2,
PG4, PG6, and PG7 microsatellite markers among Egyptian domestic pigeons and across other pigeon species using
cross-species amplification method. The information from this study should be useful for genetic characterization and for
developing conservation programs of this important species |
