Evaluation of Genetic Diversity in Japanese and English White Quail Populations Using Microsatellite Markers

The Japanese and English White quails are widespread strains and belongs to the Galliformes order, Phasianidae family, Coturnix genus  and Japonica species. These birds are likely to be well-adapted to the hard conditions and resistance to diseases as it has attained economic importance as an agricultural species. In the current study, the genetic variation of Japanese and English White  quail  populations  were studied. Frequency of polymorphic loci, polymorphic information content, heterozygosity, Shannon's information index, number of  observed  and effective alleles were assessed using  4 microsatellite markers with high polymorphic information content value (GUJ0034,  GUJ0049, GUJ0080 and GUJ0097).  The Blood samples were collected randomly from  50 Japanese quails  and  50 English White  quails rearing in the research center of Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. The genomic DNA was extracted using DIAtom DNA Prep  100  kit, and its quality and quantity were determined using electrophoresis gel and spectrophotometery methods. The PCR reactions were successfully performed with four microsatellite markers. The results based on  the chi-square  and likelihood ratio tests showed a significant deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The means of genetic diversity parameters such as number of effective alleles, the number of observed alleles, the expected and observed heterozygosity, Shannon's information index and PIC  in quail populations were  4.78±0.37,  7.50±0.57,  0.79±0.02,  0.60±0.16, 1.73±0.05 and 0.76±0.02 respectively. The results of the current study showed that the investigated quail populations have a relatively high genetic diversity with respect to the applied microsatellite markers and confirmed prior study’s findings on  the ability  of microsatellite markers in investigating genetic diversity.